Figures in Extinction

Can we ever hope to give a name to what we are losing? What does it mean to bear witness to a violence in which we are both perpetrators and victims? 

Experience the culmination of a major new collaboration between world-renowned international artists Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney, and the astounding NDT 1 dancers.

Over the last four years, fueled by the urgency of the time and the increasing global destruction they were witnessing, Pite and McBurney have weaved their hopes and fears for our current moment into this moving and timely dance trilogy. The result, Figures in Extinction, is a cross-continental conversation split into an evening of three startling, half-hour works fusing dance, performance, spoken word, documentary and music.

Figures in Extinction [1.0] the list (Winner of the Most Impressive Dance Production at the 2022 Nederlandse Dansdagen) is a study of the species and environments we have lost and are losing.

Figures in Extinction [2.0] but then you come to the humans is a searing look at our need for connection in a separated world.

Figures in Extinction [3.0] requiem is a requiem for grief, and our relationship with the dead.

The entire trilogy won the Sky Arts Award in the category Dance in 2025.

NDT’s associate choreographer Crystal Pite, known for her breath-taking, boundary-pushing work in dance, and Simon McBurney, influential and innovative theatre-maker and co-founder of Complicité, unite their visionary practices to explore how artists can meaningfully create in the face of mass destruction.

In this age of disconnection, we must come together to comprehend what we are living through. Figures in Extinction is an attempt to find this unity and ignite a collective spark of hope in the darkness.