Thanks to the Dr. Christiane Hackerodt Art and Culture Foundation, another highly endowed prize will be awarded for the first time in 2026: the Dr. Christiane Hackerodt Art Foundation Award Choreography Hannover, endowed with EUR 10,000. A total of EUR 50,000 in prize money will be awarded, as well as nine production prizes. Ballett Gesellschaft Hannover hereby invites applications for the 40th International Choreographic Competition Hanover. - The competition is open to choreographers and dancers with a professional education and of any artistic style. The relevant criteria for the competition are the imaginative use of space and time, the realization of the idea, and the transfer to the actors. - The competition is limited to choreographers aged 39 years or younger. - The performance has to be between 5 and 12 minutes long. - Solo-ballets may not be interpreted by the choreographer her/himself. Based upon these formal conditions we create the possibility of a competition open to any artistic style. Applications are due before March 15th, 2026, Application documents and online application: www.choreography-hannover.de Artistic director: Gregor Zöllig, Artistic Director & chief choreographer Tanztheater Staatstheater Braunschweig
choreography40 - Video
On the Other Side of the Curtain
By James Weis
Jill Eathorne Bahr is one of those rare choreographers whose work slips under your skin before you realize it’s happening. She doesn’t shout for attention or chase trends. Instead, she builds dances the way a good novelist builds chapters—through character, rhythm, emotional detail, and just enough mystery to make you lean in. Her movement has an American sensibility: grounded yet lyrical, honest without being sentimental, and shaped by the deep eclecticism of U.S. dance training. She’s as much a listener as she is a maker, and dancers trust her for good reason. Jill creates rooms where questions are welcome, individuality is encouraged, and the process is as important as the premiere. Her career has woven together choreography, mentorship, and education—producing generations of dancers who learned that choreography isn’t simply steps but conversation. Jill has an uncanny ability to pull something specific from each dancer, making them feel simultaneously seen and challenged. That, in my opinion, is its own kind of choreography. We met to talk about the craft, the music, the evolution of American ballet, and the shifting identity of the modern choreographer. What follows is our conversation. On discovering choreography JW: Do you remember when choreography first began to pull you? JEB: I began as a dancer, but almost immediately I found myself watching the room instead of the mirror. I didn’t just see individual dancers; I saw constellations—bodies, spacing, and the negative space between them, all alive and sculptural. And I started listening for the rhythm that isn’t in the score, but in the transitions, in the way bodies converge and part.
JW: What first sparked your desire to create movement—was it a teacher, a piece of music, or a moment in training? JEB: The music, always. Before I cared about steps, I cared about sound. As a young dancer, I felt compelled to make certain melodies visible—like my body was the only instrument that could translate them.
Teachers gave me technique and vocabulary, but the music gave me the reason. A score opened a world in my head, and the only way to live inside it was to build it physically—first with my own body, then through others. Choreography became my physical reply to the music’s first call. On American dance influences JW: Your background is grounded in American traditions. Which elements most shaped you? JEB: Ballet and American modern sit at the center of my identity. It isn’t a blend so much as a dialogue—the vertical purity of ballet constantly in conversation with the grounded, rebellious spirit of modern dance. I’ve never seen them as opposites; they’re two languages I speak at once. Ballet taught me line, form, and discipline—the belief that beauty is earned. Modern dance gave me the truth in the torso, the meaning of a fall, the honesty of a flexed foot. I’m never satisfied with work that’s only pretty or only visceral. I’m always looking for the place where grace meets grit.
JW: Who are the mentors whose voices still echo when you walk into a studio? JEB: Jerry Burr taught me that technique is useless without drama and gave me the patience to coach dancers toward their best. Bruce Marks let me experiment and taught me to consider what the audience sees from across the footlights. Norbert Vesak, with his razor-sharp honesty, pushed me to be my truest self. Birgit Cullberg imprinted theatrical rawness, and Robert Joffrey gave me the greatest gift—an open door. Watching him work taught me that choreography isn’t about steps; it’s about understanding the entire ecosystem of dance, from class to curtain call. My artistic identity isn’t solitary; it’s a tapestry woven from their corrections, encouragement, and necessary critique. On process and creation JW: When you begin a new work, what usually comes first—movement, theme, music, or an image? JEB: For me, it begins with the music. I think of choreography as a kind of scat singing—movement as improvisation, the body acting like an instrument in dialogue with the score. The singer in scat doesn’t repeat the melody; they riff, question, and answer it. That’s what movement does for me. The score gives us structure—melody, tempo, harmonic shifts. The choreography is the physical scat solo that rises above it, around it, and through it, completing the conversation the music starts. JW: Do you plan structure in advance, or does it emerge in the studio? JEB: I don’t arrive with a fixed structure. That doesn’t mean the work has no form—it means the form emerges organically from the physical and musical conversation. The structure becomes that of a living organism, not a blueprint. It’s a vulnerable way to create. I’m less an architect dictating every detail and more a midwife, helping something with its own will to exist find its shape. I begin by listening and trust the body’s intelligence to find the right path.
JW: How do you find the right musical world for each piece? JEB: I’m digging for the sonic soul of the work. Sometimes it’s place—if a piece is rooted in a specific culture, the music must be, too. Sometimes it’s a single instrument that becomes a character: the urgency of a frame drum, the lament of a cello, the pluck of a koto. And sometimes it’s the dancer who is the instrument. I watch how they move and immediately “hear” them—pizzicato, bassoon, percussion. Whether guided by place, instrument, or dancer, the goal is always the same: to create a world where sound and movement are inseparable, where the dance makes the music visible and the music makes the dance audible. On working with dancers JW: What qualities define the dancers you’re most excited to collaborate with? JEB: The “It Factor” is real, but it’s not mystical. For me, it’s a few very clear things: Complete body intelligence – Dancers who listen with their skin and think with their bones. Movement doesn’t sit on them; it moves through them.
Dynamic courage – The audacity to be fully, vulnerably physical—to fall, fly, hover on the edge of imbalance, or stand in charged stillness. A total commitment that turns steps into truth. Tenderness as strength – A heightened listening to music, partners, and space. The ability to handle a gesture with care, to show fragility without losing power. That’s what keeps brilliance from going cold. And then they must be beautiful people—not in appearance, but in spirit. Generous, low-ego, kind. The studio is a vulnerable space. I need artists who lift the work and everyone in the room. I look for dancers in whom power and delicacy are partners—who move with both thunder and a whisper. When I see that courageous, tender humanity, I know I’ve found a true collaborator. JW: How do you encourage dancers to bring their individuality into your language? JEB: I don’t want replicas; I want collaborators. The studio has to be a sanctuary where dancers feel safe in their own skin. That means banishing judgment, treating mistakes as discoveries, and honoring the physical truth of each body.
I invite them to be unapologetically vulnerable. A guarded gesture is just a shape; the same gesture offered vulnerably becomes a story. I ask questions like, “What does the movement want to do in your body?” or “Forget the count—what’s the impulse?” That shifts authority from my eye to their instincts. The truth isn’t mine alone; it’s in their bones, and my job is to help them hear it. I also use restrictions—counterintuitive, but vital. “Move only in a straight line.” “Keep your focus on your partner’s hands.” The limit becomes a wall for their instincts to push against, bypassing overthinking and freeing creativity. On studio culture JW: What kind of atmosphere do you aim to create in rehearsal? JEB: Quiet, disciplined, and electric. I keep the studio free of side chatter—not to suppress energy, but to heighten it. When everyone holds the same frequency, they listen with their whole being to the music, the space, and the evolving work. That focus creates a kind of creative gravity. I love to move fast and remember quickly. The process becomes a rapid-fire exchange, a stream of physical consciousness. I need dancers who can absorb, anticipate, and translate a cue into movement instantly. It keeps the work instinctual and protects the raw impulse that often contains the deepest truth. When I’m zoned in on one dancer or a small group, that dialogue is the central channel. We’re not barking orders; we’re solving problems together. That’s where the magic happens: a safe, serious, high-voltage room where “what if?” is always welcome. On artistic identity and the field JW: For someone seeing your work for the first time, how would you describe your choreographic voice? JEB: My voice is rooted in athletic dynamism and musicality—sleek, explosive, rhythmically driven. I’m drawn to complex scores and physical structures that feel like living puzzles. I’m equally compelled by narrative and abstraction. The patterns, the architecture of bodies in space, are never just math to me; they’re the physical expression of thoughts, relationships, and systems. I want audiences to feel the thrill of seeing a pattern click into place and, inside it, recognize something deeply human.
JW: How has your process evolved over time? JEB: There was a time when I discovered the work through my own body. Now, my creative center lives more in language and imagery. I build the vocabulary with words, then watch what dancers do with it. I’ve become a curator of interpretation. I set the score with intention, then look for the moments in their execution that make me sit up. “That. More of that.” The choreography has become a collaborative tapestry—my vision woven through their instruments. On the industry and its future JW: How has contemporary ballet changed since you began? JEB: The walls between genres have fallen. What was once radical—melding modern’s grounded honesty with ballet’s line and speed—is now the baseline. Global voices have expanded the vocabulary, and ballet is more conceptual, more socially aware, and more inclusive than when I began. JW: What concerns you about where things are going? JEB: I worry about the circus of tricks. The obsession with sky-high extensions, endless turns, and acrobatic stunts is overshadowing music, story, and nuance. We’re pushing dancers’ bodies to dangerous extremes and, at the same time, flattening the art into spectacle. I love virtuosity—but as one tool among many. When the variation becomes a stunt reel, we risk training phenomenal athletes and forgetting to develop artists. On legacy and dream stages JW: Is there a work that marked a turning point for you? JEB: The Rite of Spring. Reimagining it as a primal, matriarchal tale—about creation, sin, and the collapse of a community—allowed my personal voice to emerge with new clarity and force. JW: If you could create a new ballet for any company in the world, who would you choose? JEB: The National Ballet of Canada. Hope Muir’s curation is fearless—pairing the theatrical edge of Lightfoot/León, the raw power of Crystal Pite, and the narrative mastery of Val Caniparoli. Just as vital is the company’s visible commitment to diversity. You feel the authenticity of that onstage. To have my work share a stage with that repertoire and that kind of ensemble would be a profound honor. Jill Eathorne Bahr’s work reminds us that choreography is not merely about shaping bodies but about shaping experiences—both for dancers and audiences. Her approach is generous, thoughtful, and unmistakably American in its openness to curiosity and collaboration. As she continues to create and mentor the next generation, Jill demonstrates that the heart of choreography lies not in spectacle but in connection. And in her hands, connection becomes its own kind of art.
Christos Papadopoulos
Biographie Né en 1982 dans un petit village du Péloponnèse (Grèce), Christos Papadopoulos a étudié la danse et la chorégraphie au SNDO (School for New Dance Development) à Amsterdam, le théâtre au National Theatre of Greece Drama School (GNT Drama School) et les sciences politiques à l’Université Panteion (2000). Son écriture chorégraphique singulière se distingue par une dimension plastique très travaillée, des rapports entre corps et espaces ou mouvements et musiques particulièrement étroits et une importance du groupe choral. La nature ne cesse d’inventer une profusion de formes, de mouvements, de structures dont l’observation est source d’inspiration. Fasciné par la créativité des processus naturels, le chorégraphe grec Christos Papadopoulos conçoit une danse organique, qui transforme la manière dont les corps interagissent, s’organisent — élargissant la perception de leurs modes de relation. S’appuyant sur les mouvements simples du corps humain, il développe des expériences proches de la transe, impliquant tous les sens dans une immersion esthétique en plusieurs dimensions. Depuis 2003, il enseigne le mouvement et l’improvisation à l’école d’art dramatique du Conservatoire d’Athènes. Après avoir été chorégraphe assistant différents metteurs en scène, ses premières œuvres en 2016 et 2017 lui valurent rapidement une reconnaissance nationale et internationale.
ALEXEI RATMANSKY
ALEXEI RATMANSKY Photo: Fabrizio Ferri
Alexei Ratmansky was born in St. Petersburg in 1968 and received his ballet training at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow. He danced as principal with the Ukrainian National Ballet, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet. While still an active dancer, he began a sensational career as a choreographer. Since then he has worked for the most important companies in the world, including the ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, the ballet of the Paris Opera, the Royal Ballet in London, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet, the New York City Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre or the San Francisco Ballet. He has also created choreographies for dancing stars such as Nina Ananiashvili, Wendy Wheelan, Diana Vishneva and Mikhail Baryshnikov. From 2004 to 2008, Ratmansky was the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, for which he created full-length ballets such as The Bright Stream (2003), The Bolt (2005) and Lost Illusions (2011). There he also produced Le Corsaire (2007) and The Flames of Paris (2008) as a combination of reconstruction and new production. From 2009 to 2023, he had been associated with the American Ballet Theatre in New York through a long-term contract as artist in residence. In 2023 he joined the New York City Ballet. In 2014 he staged Marius Petipa's Paquita for the Bayerisches Staatsballett. In 2022 the ensemble presented his choreography Pictures at an Exhibition as part of the three-part ballet evening Passages. With his choreography on three Tchaikovsky overtures, he creates for the first time a world premiere for the Bayerisches Staatsballett. His artistic work has been honoured with many awards. Starting with the Golden Mask for Dreams of Japan (1998), which he was subsequently awarded three more times (2004, 2007 and 2010). In 2005 Ratmansky received the Prix Benois de la Danse for Anna Karenina. This was followed in 2006 by the Dmitry Shostakovich Prize and a London Critics' Circle Award. In addition, he received the Bessie Award and the Dance Magazine Award in the USA, both in 2011. In the same year he was awarded the Dannebrogorden by the Danish Queen Margrethe II.
Wayne McGregor
'AN ADVENTURESOME EXPERIMENTER WITH A RESTLESS MIND, INTENT ON PUSHING HIS DISPARATE AUDIENCE, HIS COLLABORATORS AND HIMSELF.' Born in 1970, Wayne McGregor CBE is a multi award winning British choreographer and director, internationally renowned for trailblazing innovations in performance that have radically redefined dance in the modern era. Driven by an insatiable curiosity about movement and its creative potentials, his experiments have led him into collaborative dialogue with an array of artistic forms, scientific disciplines, and technological interventions. The startling and multi-dimensional works resulting from these interactions have ensured McGregor’s position at the cutting edge of contemporary arts for over twenty-five years.
Benjamin Millepied
Benjamin Millepied is a choreographer, filmmaker, and former principal dancer with New York City Ballet. He was born in Bordeaux, France and grew up in Senegal until age five, where he began dancing. At eleven years old, he began studying classical ballet with Vladimir Skouratoff at the Grand Theatre de Bordeaux. From 1990 to 1993, he attended the Conservatoire National Superieur de Lyon, where he continued his studies with Marie-France Dieulevin and Michel Rahn. He moved to New York to attend the School of American Ballet in 1993, studying under the direction of Stanley Williams and Adam Luders, and performed as part of the original cast of Jerome Robbins’ “2 & 3 Part Inventions.” Mr. Millepied joined New York City Ballet in 1995 and was promoted to Principal Dancer in 2001. During his time with NYCB, Mr. Millepied performed a vast repertory of works by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, and he originated roles in ballets by Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Mauro Bigonzetti, Angelin Preljoçaj, Peter Martins, and Jerome Robbins. Mr. Millepied began his choreographic career in 2001 and soon founded the pick-up troupe Danses Concertantes as vehicle for his choreography and commissions. In 2006, he served as a choreographer-in-residence at The Baryshnikov Arts Center and created the solo Years Later for Mikhail Baryshnikov. Since 2005, Mr. Millepied has choreographed for NYCB, Paris Opera Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Berlin Staatsoper, The Mariinsky Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Geneva Ballet, and Dutch National Ballet. Over the years, Mr. Millepied has collaborated on new works with artists Mark Bradford, Christopher Wool, Barbara Kruger, Liam Gillick, Rodarte, Thierry Escaich, and United Visual Artists. Composer Nico Muhly and Benjamin have created six ballets together. In 2010, Millepied both choreographed and starred inDarren Aronofsky's award-winning film Black Swan. Mr. Millepied moved to Los Angeles in 2012 and co-founded the L.A. Dance Project with Charles Fabius. The company has since performed hundreds of shows at both prestigious theaters and non-traditional venues, and has commissioned multiple dance films. In 2018, Mr. Millepied found a new home for LADP at 2245. The space serves as both the company’s rehearsal and performance studios, as well as a residency space for dance artists in the community. In January 2013, Mr. Millepied was appointed to serve as the Director of the Paris Opera Ballet. While at the helm, Mr. Millepied created a dance medicine program at Paris Opera, launched a digital stage, and commissioned new works by William Forsythe, Jerome Bel, Wayne McGregor, Justin Peck, Crystal Pite, and Tino Seghal; he revived works by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Maguy Marin; and he invited Batsheva Dance Company for the first time at the Opera. Mr. Millepied resigned in 2016 to pursue his career as a choreographer and filmmaker. Directors Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai chronicle Millepied’s tenure at Paris Opera in their critically-acclaimed documentary Reset. Millepied recently finished production on his directorial feature debut, Carmen. The film will be released worldwide in 2022 by Sony Pictures Classics. Mr. Millepied has been awarded the prestigious Bourse Lavoisier Scholarship from the French government, a winner of the Prix de Lausanne, a recipient of SAB's Mae. L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise, and a United States Artists Wynn Fellow in Dance. In 2010 he was awarded the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture.
Christopher Wheeldon, OBE
Photo copyright Angela Sterling CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON, OBE (Director & Choreographer) trained at The Royal Ballet School and joined The Royal Ballet in 1991. In 1993, he joined New York City Ballet and was promoted to Soloist in 1998. He was named NYCB’s first Resident Choreographer in July 2001. Since then, Mr. Wheeldon has created and staged productions for many of the world’s major ballet companies,San Francisco Ballet, The Bolshoi Ballet, The Mariinsky Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet and Hamburg Ballet among others. In 2007, Mr. Wheeldon founded Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and was appointed an Associate Artist for Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. Mr. Wheeldon now serves as Artistic Associate of The Royal Ballet.Mr. Wheeldon has created many works for the company, including the full-length Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale, both of which were co-productions with The National Ballet of Canada. Like Water for Chocolate is his latest full-length ballet for The Royal Ballet which had its premiere in June 2022. In 2012, his ballet Cinderella premiered at Het Nationale Ballet and is making its way to audiences worldwide. For the Metropolitan Opera, he choreographed Dance of the Hours for Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (2006) and Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen (2012) as well as ballet sequences for the feature film Center Stage (2000) and the musical Sweet Smell of Success on Broadway (2002). Mr. Wheeldon created a special excerpt for the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, and in April 2016, he was the Artistic Director for the Fashion Forward exhibition in Paris at La Musee Arts et Decoratif. In 2014, Mr. Wheeldon directed and choreographed the Broadway musical version of An American in Paris, which had productions in Paris, New York, and London and has tour extensively through America, China, Japan and Australia. The Joffrey Ballet presented the world premiere in 2016 of The Nutcracker reimagined by Mr. Wheeldon and in 2017 he directed and choreographed Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon starring Kelli O’Hara and Patrick Wilson at New York City Center. 2019 saw the premiere of Corybantic Games at The Royal Ballet and a re-staged version of Cinderella for the English National Ballet at Royal Albert Hall. Most recently, MJ The Musical opened on Broadway winning four Tony Awards, including Best Choreography. Among Mr. Wheeldon’s other awards are a Tony Award for Best Choreography for An American in Paris, an Outer Critics Award for Best Choreography and Direction for An American in Paris, the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center, the American Choreography Award, the Dance Magazine Award, South Bank Show Award, multiple London Critics’ Circle Awards, and the Léonide Massine Prize for new choreography. Mr. Wheeldon’s productions of Cinderella and The Winter’s Tale received the Benois de la Danse, and he is an Olivier Award winner for his ballets Aeternum for The Royal Ballet and Polyphonia for Morphoses. In 2016, Mr. Wheeldon was named an O.B.E. and was made an Honorary Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Christopher is a dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom and resides in New York City with his husband, Ross Rayburn, and their dogs, Hattie and Theo.
JUSTIN PECK
Justin Peck is the Resident Choreographer and Artistic Advisor of New York City Ballet. One of the most acclaimed and in-demand choreographers of his generation, he has created more than 35 works for NYCB and other dance companies around the world. His artistic collaborators include composers Dan Deacon, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Sufjan Stevens; and visual artists John Baldessari, Jules de Balincourt, Marcel Dzama, Shepard Fairey, Karl Jensen, and Sterling Ruby; and fashion designers Tsumori Chisato, Prabal Gurung, Mary Katrantzou, Humberto Leon, and Dries Van Noten. Outside of NYCB, Peck has created ballets for the Paris Opéra Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Houston Ballet, and L.A. Dance Project, and his works have also been performed by Dutch National Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Acosta Danza, Hong Kong Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Pennsylvania Ballet, among other companies. A native of San Diego, California, Peck studied at California Ballet before enrolling at the School of American Ballet in 2003. He was named an apprentice in 2006, joined the NYCB corps de ballet in spring 2007, and was promoted to Soloist in February 2013. His repertory as a dancer included ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Alexei Ratmansky, and Christopher Wheeldon, among others, in addition to performing in his own works. Peck first choreographed as a student at SAB in 2005. He participated in a working session at the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of NYCB, in the fall of 2009, and received NYCI’s first year-long choreographic residency in 2011. He was named NYCB’s Resident Choreographer, the second in the Company’s history, in July 2014. Peck also served as a member of NYCB’s interim artistic team from December 2017 until his appointment as Artistic Advisor in February 2019, working closely with the artistic leadership on programming and choreographic commissions. Peck transitioned off NYCB’s dancer roster following NYCB’s 2019 Spring Season. Peck was the subject of the 2014 documentary Ballet 422, which followed him for two months as he created NYCB’s 422nd original ballet, Paz de la Jolla. In 2015, his ballet Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes won the Bessie Award for Outstanding Production and he is the recipient of the 2018 Ted Arison Young Artist Award. Peck won a 2018 Tony Award for his choreography for the Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. He is the choreographer of the upcoming film adaptation of West Side Story, directed by Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg.
Crystal Pite
In a choreographic career spanning three decades, Crystal Pite has created more than 50 works for dance companies in Canada and around the world. She is the founding artistic director of the Vancouver-based company Kidd Pivot, world-renowned for radical hybrids of dance and theatre that are assembled with a keen sense of wit and invention. Ms. Pite is known for works that courageously address such challenging and complex themes as trauma, addiction, conflict, consciousness and mortality; her bold and original vision has earned her international acclaim and inspired an entire generation of dance artists. Crystal Pite was born in Terrace, BC, and grew up in Victoria. She began her dance career as a company member of Ballet British Columbia (Ballet BC), then William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. She made her choreographic debut in 1990 at Ballet BC, and since then has created works for such prominent companies as The Royal Ballet, The Paris Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater I, Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, The National Ballet of Canada, Ballets Jazz Montréal (resident choreographer 2001–04), and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. She has also collaborated with Electric Company Theatre and Robert Lepage, and is currently Associate Choreographer of Nederlands Dans Theater I, Associate Dance Artist of Canada’s National Arts Centre, and Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells in London. In 2002, she formed Kidd Pivot, a company that strives to distill and translate universal questions into artworks that connect us to deep and essential parts of humanity. “Running through all of my work is the question of what moves us,” she says. Kidd Pivot tours internationally with critically acclaimed works such as Betroffenheit and Revisor (both co-created with playwright Jonathon Young), The Tempest Replica, Dark Matters, Lost Action, and The You Show. In 2008, Crystal Pite participated in the inaugural GGPAA Mentorship Program as the protégée of 2004 GGPAA laureate Veronica Tennant, former principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada. Crystal Pite is a Member of the Order of Canada. Her other awards and honours include the Benois de la Danse, Canada Council Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, Grand Prix de la danse de Montréal, two UK Critics’ Circle Dance Awards, three Laurence Olivier Awards, and an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University.