The Edinburgh International Festival continues to prove how committed it is to bringing the finest examples of the arts to the city every year, and this time it could not have been otherwise. Figures in Extinction is one of the most elevated ballets I have ever seen, both in terms of technique, concept and production design. Crystal Pite proves herself to be one of the finest choreographers currently working in Europe. What sets her apart is her willingness to look directly at the world around her and to translate difficult, often painful subjects into movement that feels alive, urgent and deeply human. In Figures in Extinction, a trilogy created with Simon McBurney of Complicité and performed by the extraordinary dancers of Nederlands Dans Theater, she turns her attention to the climate crisis. Few themes could feel more pressing, and for me it was impossible not to be moved by the way this work grapples with loss, denial, connection and hope.
Figures in Extinction is divided in three sections. The first, ‘the list’, begins with a voice naming species and environments that have already disappeared. With each name, dancers embody those lost creatures and landscapes. They do not imitate animals but evoke their essence through trembling torsos, twitching arms, and sudden collapses. The result is haunting, as though the bodies on stage become living specimens of everything that has vanished. The list grows faster and faster until it is impossible to keep up, overwhelming in a way that mirrors the real urgency of extinction. At one point, the litany is interrupted by a climate change denier, a figure both absurd and disturbingly familiar, lip-syncing rhetoric about personal responsibility and economic priorities while the dancers around him continue to fold into shapes of disappearing life. I felt myself getting angry, then sorrowful, then overwhelmed, which is exactly the power of this opening act.
The second part, ‘but then you come to the humans’, shifts the focus from nature to us. Dancers sit in rows, lit only by their phones, absorbed and disconnected, while a voiceover examines the divided brain and the ways we privilege rationality over intuition. The choreography here contrasts rigid, controlled movement with moments of abandon.
The final section, ‘requiem’, meditates on grief and our relationship with death, both personal and planetary. A hospital bed is wheeled on stage, family members grieve, and voices recall loved ones who are gone. The music shifts between Mozart, Fauré, Schnittke and even Ice Spice, creating a collage that reflects the absurd, messy, heartbreaking texture of loss. Dancers move with extraordinary passion, sometimes clustering into sculptural tableaux that evoke famous paintings, sometimes collapsing into stillness. At one moment, the stage resembles The Raft of the Medusa, at another a quiet bedside vigil. It is confronting and yet strangely hopeful, suggesting continuity between the living and the dead, and the possibility that in remembering what has been lost, we might begin to imagine a different future.
In terms of the production design, Tom Visser’s lighting turns the stage into shifting landscapes and the sound design by Owen Belton and Benjamin Grant blends classical music with field recordings and fragments of speech. The staging by Jay Gower Taylor and Michael Levine is fluid and responsive, which never felt like dominating but instead heightened the dance.
Few works manage to be so intellectually rigorous, emotionally devastating and visually stunning all at once. Figures in Extinction is one of them and seeing it at the Edinburgh International Festival feels like both a privilege and a wake-up call.
Reviewer: Nazaret Ranea
Reviewed: 22nd August 2025
North West End UK Rating: