Welcome to our review blog for Lost Action. Read our patron reviews, click on the Comments button to read the comments of others and post your own thoughts.

The short of it: go see this show. If you love dance, this show will remind you why. If you don’t like dance, this show will make you say, “okay, dance sucks, EXCEPT for Kidd Pivot.” Go see this show.
The long(er) of it: Kidd Pivot’s Lost Action was the first show that I’ve seen at On the Boards in which I enter the theatre hoping that it’s going to be a specific something, and it turns out to be exactly that. This is not a qualitative statement; I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen at OtB, including the Back2Back thing at the Sculpture Park last season. But every time I go, I say to myself, “okay, what the hell is this going to be?”, or I simply memorize the blurbs from the website and walk in half-blind. For Kidd Pivot, I saw a few photos from the season brochure and read the description. I thought to myself, “man, I hope this is physically aggressive movement, not so much dance but pure physical expression, featuring multiple muscular men.” I GOT WHAT I CAME FOR!

Lost Action blew me away. I’m surprised that Kidd Pivot’s work is seen as so original, because, frankly, I’ve wanted to see this kind of choreography for a long time, and I was enthralled to finally see it onstage. These seven performers pull, push, carry, throw, hang from, and chase each other across a red-orange stage with a red-orange backdrop. They freak out, they move in unison, they make noises, and they repeat. They make me wonder, Is this choreography done in counts, like usual? The movement phrases are so varied, so crazy, and so long that I can’t imagine them counting “4, 5, 6…” in their heads. There were multiple moments of complete silence, no sound from the speakers, only the whispers of bodies moving across the floor, and when a particularly acrobatic feat was achieved, the audience let out a collective gasp. The choreography is not just fun to watch, it’s incredibly human. It has an aspect of storytelling without dipping into either cheesy mime or music-video dance. I feel connected to the movements onstage, not just because they’re beautiful, but because I can tell that they are rooted in human experience and human emotion.

Keep it up, OtB! I dare say that this was the most straightforward thing I’ve seen in your space, but I didn’t mind! I want more compelling, physically-daring movement like this! AND EVERYONE ELSE — go see this show.

-Ben Rapson

You must see this show.

Personal preface: I make dance, even though for the past 10 years I have been more inspired by film and music and visual art forms than the craft that I have been trained in since I was 3.  I always believed that dance could say what all the other forms could not.  That it could tap into the unspeakable, a primal creative impulse, and connect us to our bodies in a sexually retarded culture that tells us not to, in any sort of healthy way that is.  But the truth, is that I have secretly hated dance for the past 10 years.  Not trusting that it can say enough on it’s own because I have seen performance after performance that just doesn’t quite do it or fails completely.  The performances that have inspired me over the past decade use dance as an element, but it  in a very heavy relationship with…other.

You must see this show.

After seeing Kidd Pivot 2 years ago, I was sold.  Crystal Pite is true intelligent dance making.   After seeing Kidd Pivot last night, my faith in dance has been restored.  I felt like I was at church.  Every moment was a “What?” “Oh no he didn’t!”  “Hell yes!”  And then there were tears, gasps, jaw drops, chills,  long exhales, jolts of physical desire to be involved, to be moving that way. The empathetic understanding of the work it takes to be able to move that way.  These dancers embody everything I preach to my students every week and everything I aspire to in myself, personally and professionally.  When your core is strong enough and your awareness of how to not only channel energy, but direct it, you can fearlessly, honestly abandon and embrace simultaneously. This goes for both dancing and crafting dance. Both seasoned professional and neophyte can feel this when done well.  

You must see this show.

Crystal is freakin smart. Her use of structure is perfect. She hooks you with a straight forward idea and leaves room for you to feel your way through it.  Crystal understands time.  She leaves you with just the right amount, not only from section to section, but as a whole.  She understands sound and the use of it, it’s emotional and rhythmical impact.  She understands breath and sensation in a deep and honest way that isn’t touchy feely bullshit.  Within all that softness there is an edge, or the opposite, depending on how you look at it.  She understands the importance of mystery.  She trusts her audiences enough NOT to insult their intelligence by bludgeoning them with an overly important concept (like the majority of dance/art makers out there).

You must see this show.

It has been a long time since I have seen a piece of choreography that inspired me so profoundly.  I either want to follow Crystal around until she asks me to dance for her, or just keep kicking my own ass and my dancers’ asses to ascend to the levels I know we are all capable of.

You must see this show.

I never yell Bravo.  I yelled Bravo like I was yelling Obama in the streets on election night.  Seriously. 

You must see this show.

And PS. Lost Action had my best friend and dancing companion Ellie Sandstrom crying like a baby the entire time and she is a tough mamma jamma.  (I cried too, but not as much as her.)

And PPS.  You must see this show.

-Amy O’Neal

Wait. Before you read this post, get tickets–if there are any left!–for this weekend’s performance. You will not be disappointed. Au contraire. You will be stunned, perhaps to the point of wordlessness, as many gaping audience members were last night.
 
The show features a phenomenal 70 minutes of intensely athletic, wildly skilled, emotionally moving choreography the boggles the mind as often as it touches the heart. The seven dancers, including company choreographer Crystal Pite, move across the stage in solos, duets, and groups, dancing in manner that bespoke both immeasurable training and organic rawness. How did she do that? I wondered this, so many times. There’s a hip-hop flavor to the piece, partly in the big black hooded jackets the dancers don at times, but also in the impossible, break-dance-esque flow of their bodies. Do these people have more bones than the rest of us do? Can someone be triple-jointed? How can a human leg swivel into a perfect S? The articulation throughout was sheer liquidity.
 
I was surprised to learn that this company hadn’t been working together for years and years–they move so perfectly together, and they are so very close together so much of the time–lifting each other, grasping, holding hands over each other’s mouths. But the ease among the company is likely due to the fact that this is a “dream team” of dancers Pite pulled together specifically for this piece (started two years ago). Much like the basketball dream team of the 1992 Olympics, they totally, utterly dominated.
 
Several sequences are repeated in the piece‹-the industrial, bell-tolling, whispered-words soundscape even suggests they “try this again.” The re-set quality struck a familiar chord to me, having recently seen the PNB’s New Works program, in which the dancers in William Forsythe’s (also industrial, pounding) “One Flat Thing, Reproduced” move relentlessly back and forth through 40 tables like some gorgeous live-action version of Frogger until someone says “re-set.” Is it a coincidence that Pite studied and danced for years with Forsythe in Ballet Frankfurt? But while Forsythe’s piece was deliberately harsh, cold, and sterile, Pite’s is anything but. Her miraculous dancers caress and carry each other, and cover their crumpled bodies in death.

-Brangien Davis

This has been cross posted @ Seattle Magazine

I’ve been getting many emails this morning from people wanting to share their thoughts about the show last night. Here’s what I’ve heard so far:

“…fucking amazing. Authentic and strong.”

“I knew I would stand halfway through.”

“Beautiful! I heard many gasps during the performance which is a sign that the performance affected others just as it did me. Thanks OTB for bringing KIDD PIVOT to Seattle. Some of the best dance I’ve seen!”

UPDATE 1pm
Kidd Pivot’s Lost Action was an incredible experience. The movement style and innovation was not only visually arresting but refreshing and inspiring. It was amazing to watch the masterful dancers carve and shape the space in ways that I had never seen before. Crystal Pite’s choreography was literally breathtaking and held onto a strong sense of narrative while allowing the story to unfold and reveal itself in a way that kept you completely engaged. I found myself hoping that it wouldn’t end! I wish that I had the money and time to see it again. Thank you to on the boards for bringing such a riveting performance to Seattle and thank you to Kidd Pivot for coming! 

UPDATE 5:30PM
I saw Kidd Pivot last night.
It was maybe the most enjoyable dance performance I’ve seen. The dancers were amazing, as was the choreography. I don’t know much about dance, but I really loved that performance.
Thank you for bringing them.

I’ll keep updating as the day goes on… 

I’m afraid I’ve already hyperbolized myself out of relevance.

There are shows. There are wars. War. There is extreme discipline. And what it enables. There is wrestling with angels.

There is one death and it is shared and bodies in violent motion, everyday motion, play motion, are fathered and mothered by its impossibility, expanding and contracting, passionately – to the music of organs, crossing signals, breath, chatter – like the universe around a vortex of void.

Even the score on its own would be worth it, k? And the emergency lighting.

I want you to see Crystal Pite’s Kidd Pivot work this weekend because I would like it to be a touchstone for people I know (and don’t know).

Peace ~ Paige Weinheimer

People were buzzing at last night’s karaoke shindig held at OtB’s favorite post-show hang out, The Sitting Room. Check out what some attendees had to say:

“It was amazing to start to see sweat come through the male dancers shirts towards the end of the piece. You saw so much dance that looked just effortless – it was a reminder just how hard they were working.”

“The fastest standing ovation I have ever seen at OtB”

“How rare is it that anyone who has the ability to work this hard actually does – the company went above and beyond the call of duty.”

“I have seen over 100 performances at OtB and have never seen dancers as good as those tonight.”

“Unpretentious and emotional dance – with hot ass moves.”

“the best single performance I have seen in 10 years.” 

Ever wonder what happens when a company of international performers lands in Seattle, takes over The Sitting Room and throwsdown some kickass karaoke? Wonder no more! Check out a couple pictures from the scene at last night’s post-show mixer-up…

So says the Oregonian about Lost Action. Come check it out for yourself this Thu – Sat.

(And don’t forget opening night karaoke!)

Join us this Thursday evening after the Kidd Pivot performance for a very special post-show party at the Sitting Room. We’re talking karaoke!

The Kidd Pivot company and crew, with Crystal Pite at the helm, have arranged a decathlon of events concurrent with their 10-city tour and we’ve been chosen to play host to the karaoke competition. In an unprecedented move, we’re renting a karaoke machine to be installed in the Sitting Room for one night only. Come and test your chops against Canada’s best or just sit back and watch the Seattle-Vancouver rivalry play out.

Bring it on.