Betroffenheit A production of Kidd Pivot and Electric Company Theatre Jonathon Young Writer Crystal Pite Choreographer and Director Friday Evening, March 17, 2017 at 8:00 Saturday Evening, March 18, 2017 at 8:00 Power Center Ann Arbor 47th and 48th Performances of the 138th Annual Season Dance Series International Theater Series Tonight’s supporting sponsors are Joel Howell and Linda Samuelson. Funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Special thanks to Grace Lehman and the Ann Arbor Y, Joel Howell, Morgan Lamonica, and Clare Croft for their participation in events surrounding this weekend’s performances. Betroffenheit appears by arrangement with Menno Plukker Theatre Agent, Inc. In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance. The photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited. CAST Performers / Bryan Arias, David Raymond, Cindy Salgado, Jermaine Spivey, Tiffany Tregarthen, Jonathon Young* Apprentice / Haley Heckethorn CREATIVE TEAM Writer / Jonathon Young Choreographer and Director / Crystal Pite Composition and Sound Design / Owen Belton, Alessandro Juliani, Meg Roe Set Design / Jay Gower Taylor Lighting Design / Tom Visser Costume Design / Nancy Bryant Rehearsal Direction / Eric Beauchesne Additional Choreography / Bryan Arias (salsa), Cindy Salgado (salsa), David Raymond (tap) Set Construction / Scene Ideas Scenic Painters / Patrick Spavor, Daniel Dumitriu Puppets / Heidi Wilkinson, Omanie Elias Costume Assistant and Builder / Nicola Ryall Costume Cutter / Linda Chow Stitcher / Patrice Yapp Stitcher and Builder / Wendy Dallian Production Manager and Technical Director / Jeremy Collie-Holmes Audio Technician/Show Control / Eric Chad Stage Manager / Jaimie Tait* Stage Carpenter / Isaac Robinson *Appears with the permission of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. This evening’s performance is approximately two hours in duration and is performed with one intermission. Following Friday evening’s performance, please feel free to remain in your seats and join us for a post-performance Q&A with members of the company. 3 A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR Jonathon Young’s personal story creating both the form and content of of trauma and loss — his own this production. A huge thank you also betroffenheit — is at the heart of this goes out to our extraordinary design venture. Jonathon has challenged me team — AJ, Meg, Owen, Jay, Nancy, to use our art form to grapple with and Tom — for their vision, hard work, the question of suffering, and he has attention to detail, and collaborative steadied me with his courage. I am so spirit. Thank you as well to Blake grateful for this opportunity to stand Brooker and Kevin Kerr for inspiration beside him for a while, to look out at and guidance. And finally, our eternal this difficult territory, and to navigate gratitude for the technical team and it with this earnest act of creating. production support staff — Eric B, I’ve been surprised by the joy within Jan, Jeremy, Eric C, Jim, Jessie, and our process, and profoundly moved by our teams at Kidd Pivot and Electric Jonathon’s curiosity and open heart. Company Theatre — whose ingenuity, Throughout his deeply sought effort, foresight, patience, and problem Jonathon has made room for us to solving have been instrumental in catch glimpses of grace. getting this production here tonight. Jonathon and I want to This production is dedicated to acknowledge and thank the brilliant Kim Collier, Stuart Collier, and Elaine team of dancers — Bryan, Cindy, Conway. David, Tiffany, and Jermaine — for their countless artistic contributions, — Crystal Pite which have been utterly essential to 4 ARTISTS Integrating movement, original music, (American Conservatory Theatre), Studies text, and rich visual design, Kidd Pivot’s in Motion (Canadian Stage), and Brilliant! performance work is assembled with (Edinburgh Fringe, San Jose Stage). In recklessness and rigor, balancing sharp 2005 the company wrote and directed The exactitude with irreverence and risk. Under Score, a feature film for CBC Television the direction of internationally renowned that played festivals in Canada, the US, Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, Mexico, Taipei, and Tokyo. The company has the company’s distinct choreographic received numerous industry awards across language — a breadth of movement fusing Canada including the first Rio Tinto Alcan classical elements and the complexity and Performing Arts Award for Theatre (2001). freedom of structured improvisation — is In 2009 Electric Company co-founded marked by a strong theatrical sensibility Progress Lab 1422, a 6,000 square-foot and a keen sense of wit and invention. theater creation space in Vancouver, with Kidd Pivot tours extensively around Rumble Theatre, Neworld Theatre, and Boca the world with productions that include del Lupo. For more information, please visit The Tempest Replica (2011), The You www.electriccompanytheatre.com. Show (2010), Dark Matters (2009), Lost Action (2006), and Double Story (2004), Canadian choreographer and performer created with Richard Siegal. Kidd Pivot Crystal Pite (co-creator, choreographer, received the 2006 Rio Tinto Alcan director) is a former company member Performing Arts Award, and was resident of Ballet British Columbia and William company at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt. Ms. Pite’s with the support of Kulturfonds Frankfurt professional choreographic debut was RheinMain, in Frankfurt, Germany from in 1990 at Ballet British Columbia. Since 2010 to 2012. For more information, please then, she has created over 40 works for visit www.kiddpivot.org. companies such as Nederlands Dans Theater I, Cullberg Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, Electric Company Theatre is one of The National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets Canada’s leading creators of live theater, Jazz de Montréal (resident choreographer, rich in spectacle and adventurous in 2001–04), Cedar Lake Contemporary form, challenging theatrical conventions Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, and Louise while preserving a strong sense of story. Lecavalier/Fou Glorieux. She has also The company was originally formed as a collaborated with Electric Company collective in 1996 by Siminovitch Prize- Theatre and Robert Lepage. She is an winning director Kim Collier, David Hudgins, associate choreographer of Nederlands Jonathon Young, and Governor General’s Dans Theater, associate dance artist Award-winning writer Kevin Kerr, who met of Canada’s National Arts Centre, and while training at Studio 58 in Vancouver. associate artist at Sadler’s Wells, London. Electric Company Theatre has created In 2002, she formed her own company, over 20 original productions including Kidd Pivot, in Vancouver. Kidd Pivot tours the film/theater hybridTear the Curtain! nationally and internationally, performing (Arts Club Theatre) a live-cinematic works such as Dark Matters and Lost Action. adaptation of Jena Paul Sartre’s No Exit Kidd Pivot’s residency at the Künstlerhaus 5 “Simply translated, Betroffenheit means shock, bewilderment, or impact. The root of the word is treffen (to meet) and betroffen (to be met), and Betroffenheit is the state of having been met, stopped, struck, or perplexed in the face of a particular event…a space and time where language ceases. We are left only with an awareness of the limits of language and the limits of what can be taken in. In this gap definitions disappear and certainty vanishes. Anything is possible — any response, any action or inaction. Nothing is prescribed. Everything is up for grabs in this fertile and palpable silence.” — From And Then, We Act by Anne Bogart “Simply translated, Betroffenheit means shock, bewilderment, or impact. The root of the word is treffen (to meet) and betroffen (to be met), and Betroffenheit is the state of having been met, stopped, struck, or perplexed in the face of a particular event…a space and time where language ceases. We are left only with an awareness of the limits of language and the limits of what can be taken in. In this gap definitions disappear and certainty vanishes. Anything is possible — any response, any action or inaction. Nothing is prescribed. Everything is up for grabs in this fertile and palpable silence.” — From And Then, We Act by Anne Bogart Mousonturm in Frankfurt (2010–12) is a former company member with provided her the opportunity to create Complexions Contemporary Ballet and tour The You Show and The Tempest and Nederlands Dans Theater. He has Replica. Most recently, the company has originated roles in and performed works premiered Betroffenheit, a co-creation with by notable choreographers including Jiří playwright and actor Jonathon Young of Kylián, Ohad Naharin, and Crystal Pite. As Electric Company Theatre. a choreographer, Mr. Arias is the recipient of the First Place and Audience Choice Jonathon Young (co-creator, writer, awards for his work Without Notice at performer) is co-artistic director of the Sixth Copenhagen International Electric Company Theatre. In 2015 he Choreography Competition (CICC), and was commissioned by Nederlands Dans winner of the Hubbard Street Dance Theater to write The Statement, a one- International Commission Project. He act play directed by Crystal Pite. The play has choreographed for Hubbard Street was performed at New York City Center in 2, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Ballet November 2016. With Electric Company, Vorpommern (Germany), and The Scottish he has collaborated on the making of over Ballet. He is the