Flight Pattern

External video
Flight Pattern – Crystal Pite (Kristen McNally, Marcelino Sambé; The Royal Ballet), YouTube video

Flight Pattern is a one-act ballet performed in 30 minutes.[2] The music inspired the structure of the choreography, with a long and slow crescendo that transitions to a single voice. Pite mimicked this structure in the creative process, focusing first on the large scale of the crisis then focusing on a singular story. Pite felt that an emotional connection with a single story would be more impactful to the audience than many dancers on stage.[1]

It begins with 36 dancers arranged in three equal rows staring at a light while rocking in packed rows.[3][4] The dancers fight with each other and perform frantically in couples.[4] The set opens at the back of the stage, mimicking the entrance to a holding area for the dancers. The dancers enter the holding area and try to find a place to sleep.[3]

The dance transitions to a pas de deux originally performed by Marcelino Sambé and Kristen McNally and danced while a soprano is singing within the music. The choreography suggests that the couple has lost a child.[3][2] During the couple's dance, the other performers place their coats on the female dancer, causing her to collapse. The performers enter a doorway, but the weight of the jackets prevents the female dancer from joining them and she remains on the ground, shivering. The male performer stays with her, dancing in frustration.[4] The ballet ends with the two dancers performing together while snow falls around them.[5]

Crystal Pite, pictured here in 2010, was the choreographer of Flight Pattern

Flight Pattern was the first dance that the Royal Ballet commissioned from Pite.[1] She started with choosing the music, which was the first movement of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No.3, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.[1][3] The symphony is believed to be Górecki's response to the Holocaust, which he had denied.[1] Pite associated the music with the European migrant crisis, for which she was "disappointed" with the international response, and on choreographing a ballet about the crisis, she said it was her "way of coping with the world at the moment".[1][3]

The dancers wear identical grey costumes in the performance;[4] the dancers begin wearing grey coats,[2] but these are later taken off to reveal grey clothes underneath.[4] Nancy Bryant designed the costumes.[6] Jay Gower Taylor designed the sets,[6] with dark panels that open and close throughout the performance[5] and manipulate the shape of the stage.[7] Tom Visser was the lighting designer for the piece.[8]

Flight Pattern premiered on on 16 March 2017. Royal Opera House, London The piece was performed as the first ballet of a triple bill that also consisted of The Human Seasons by David Dawson and After the Rain by Christopher Wheeldon.[4][1]

Flight Pattern was revived in May 2019, with McNally and Sambé reprising their roles. It was performed as the third act in a triple bill, succeeding Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Medusa and Christopher Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour.[9]

In 2022, Flight Pattern was incorporated as the first act of Light of Passage, set to the entirety of Górecki's Symphony No. 3. This is Pite's first full-length work for The Royal Ballet.[2]

Flight Pattern received rave reviews. The Independent commented that "Pite’s skill and authority are remarkable, but her refugees are presented on a single tragic note."[6] The Telegraph said "Pite’s marshalling of this huge ensemble is remarkable – never more than in the marginally more upbeat, expansive passage that seems to reflect the characters’ miraculously indefatigable optimism."[3] The Guardian wrote that it is a "sombre and deeply affecting work", but noted Pite's style differ from The Royal Ballet's, and questioned "should the company be staging work whose style is so far removed from classical ballet?"[4]

• Royal Opera House website