Voice actors; Simon McBurney, Mamie McBurney, Miles Jupp, Saskia Reeves and others.
‘The fact is that no species has ever had control over everything on Earth as we now have. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures. We need to work with nature, not against it.” David Attenborough
When two giants of contemporary performance join forces, expectations soar. Choreographer Crystal Pite and theatre director Simon McBurney combine surreal imagination and emotional power to reflect on the climate crisis, fragility of the animal kingdom and humanity’s disconnection from nature.
The trilogy of movements in ‘Figures of Extinction’ are each bound by recurring motifs - a skeleton, a breath, a hospital bed. Part [1], the list, illustrates a catalogue of vanished life as a voiceover dictates the shocking number of species and environments which are extinct or now endangered. With slick, subtle physicality, the ensemble gracefully embody these long lost animals and birds - Pyrenean ibex, spider orchid, frog and handfish - crawling and scurrying over the stage.
Visual imagery on screen captures the crack and calving of melting glaciers while the skeleton of an Asiatic cheetah is carefully pieced together by a group of dancers as if trying to resurrect this extinct animal. Elegiac yet never sentimental, these tableaux summon empathy in ways that words alone cannot convey. Belton and Grant’s musical score underpins with delicate strings and atmospheric textures, while shafts of light and shadow sculpt the dancers into ephemeral landscapes that feel alternately intimate and alien.
Part [2] but then you come to the humans, is set in the fast paced, digital corporate world of scrolling screens and business-suited robotic androids as they listen to neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist’s lecture on the divided brain. Left-brain abstraction collides with right-brain intuition in a kaleidoscope of movement, animating lip-synced speech, whether a climate-change denier or philosophical musings, translating thought into gesture. The soundtrack blends pulsing electronics and urban field recordings to amplify the tension between disconnection and awareness.
The third movement, requiem, turns to mortality and the continuity between the living and the dead. Around a hospital bed, relatives express their grief, haunted by ghostly figures, swirling with the sound of reverberating echoes and whispers. The seamless score, lush, austere, occasionally jarring - Mozart and Fauré to David Bowie and Ice Spice - evokes the delicate interplay between presence and absence, life and memory. The painterly choreography recall visions such as Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa one moment and documentary clarity the next. By the end, a fragile stillness hangs over the stage like held breath.
Every element of the production is meticulously aligned with dramatic synergy, a tightly threaded tapestry of movement, mime, text, voice, music, film and videography. The NDT dancers are astonishing whether depicting herds or fractured humans, solos and duets giving space for individual expression with effervescent energy.
While steeped in literature, philosophy and science, the piece never feels didactic. Instead, it asks, simply and piercingly: What are we losing? Can hope survive extinction? When a young child’s voice asks about the animals, “Are they gone forever?” the innocent question resonates deeper than statistics ever could.
Figures in Extinction is elegy, provocation and spectacle, confronting issues of extinction and death, yet never loses sight of satire and the spark of hope. The work is intellectually rigorous, emotionally raw and visually transcendent - a towering achievement in contemporary dance-theatre.
In the face of global catastrophe, Pite and McBurney have created a meditative, passionate cri de coeur which mourns what we’ve lost, challenges what we’ve become, and dares us to imagine what we might yet save.
Show times: 22 to 23 August 2025 at 8.00pm. 24 August 2025 at 3.00pm. (23 Captioned, 24 Audio Described).
Tickets: £21 to £71 (concessions available).
Suitability: Show contains strobe lighting, partial nudity, strong language, and themes of death, and extinction.
Note: Co-produced by Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and Complicité.
Co-commissioned by Factory International. Co-produced by schrit_tmacher Festival, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and Montpellier Danse.