Flight Pattern / Suite en Blanc

• Artistic Director Hope Muir says, “We are grateful to deepen our relationship with Crystal through this haunting work, which is certain to encourage powerful and important experiences for our Canadian audiences.”
  
  
• Pite has described Flight Pattern as a personal response to the global refugee crisis, saying “I feel this creation is my way of coping with the world at the moment.”
  
  
• Pite creates an ideological and visual tension between the needs of the individual and that of the group, with dancers stepping away from the ensemble to perform powerful solos and duets.
  
  
• Flight Pattern was Crystal Pite’s first creation for The Royal Ballet and in 2018, it won the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production.
  
  
• In 2022, Pite expanded Flight Pattern to a full-length work called Light of Passage, adding two additional sections, Covenant and Passage, to critical acclaim. Only the first section, Flight Pattern is performed on this programme.

Formerly with Ballet British Columbia and Ballet Frankfurt under William Forsythe, Crystal Pite is a world leader in contemporary choreography. She is Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater, Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre and Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells. Pite’s company, Kidd Pivot, performs her creations around the world.

Flight Pattern began with Crystal Pite’s choice of music, Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs), a three-movement work about loss and longing. Composed in 1976, the symphony is sung in Polish by a soprano soloist, with the first movement depicting a mother’s anguish at losing a son.

Choreography:
Crystal Pite

Staged by: 
Deidre Chapman and Spencer Dickhaus

Music: 
Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs 

Set Design: 
Jay Gower Taylor

Costume Design: 
Nancy Bryant

Lighting Design: 
Tom Visser

World Premiere: The Royal Ballet, London, England March 16, 2017

The National Ballet of Canada Premiere: Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, February 27, 2026

Lead philanthropic support for Flight Pattern is provided by The Gail Hutchison Fund.

• Lifar once said of Suite en Blanc, “I am preoccupied with pure dance, independent of all other considerations.”
  
  
• Variations from Suite en Blanc, like the swirling solo “Valse de la Cigarette,” are often performed as standalone pieces at international galas and competitions.
  
  
• Suite en Blanc is a celebration of the French school and style of ballet, featuring variations in distinctive themes.
  
  
• Lifar was a leading dancer with the Ballet Russes and went on to direct Paris Opéra Ballet, bolstering its reputation through his choreography. 
  
  
• Nearly the full company performs Suite en Blanc, with a total of 36 dancers performing solos, pas de deux and ensemble pieces before coming together for a grand finale. 

Born in Ukraine, Serge Lifar was a leading male dancer of the 20th century. He trained with Bronislava Nijinska and Enrico Cecchetti, later becoming a star with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and Paris Opéra Ballet, where he went on to stage and choreograph numerous works as the company’s long-serving director.

French composer and violinist Édouard Lalo originally composed this richly orchestrated score for Marius Petipa’s 1882 story ballet, Namouna. When Serge Lifar adopted Lalo’s music for Suite en Blanc, he dropped the plot but kept the names of the individual dances and allowed the elegant music to highlight the choreography.

Choreography and Musical Arrangement:
Serge Lifar
Presented by agreement with Foundation Serge Lifar

Music: 
Édouard Lalo, Suite from Namouna (1882)

Costume Design: 
Adapted by The National Ballet of Canada Wardrobe Department, Stacy Dimitropoulos, Wardrobe Supervisor

Lighting Design: 
Adapted by Jeff Logue, The National Ballet of Canada

Scenery courtesy of San Francisco Ballet.

World Premiere: Paris Opéra Ballet, Zürich, Switzerland, June 19, 1943

The National Ballet of Canada Premiere: Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, March 20, 2024