Body and Soul by Crystal Pite: Dance Workshop with Jermaine Spivey

February 20, 2021 | 12pm PST

Length – 60min (Workshop: 50min; Q&A: 10min)
Venue – Online

Enter the world of Crystal Pite

To complement our online presentation of Crystal Pite’s Body and Soul, her assistant and long-time associate, dancer Jermaine Spivey, will give a virtual dance workshop open to everyone.

Spivey joined Kidd Pivot, Crystal Pite’s Vancouver-based company, in 2008. During the creation of Body and Soul with the Paris Opera Ballet, he assisted Pite in her work with 36 dancers from the renowned ballet company.

During the workshop, participants will explore Crystal Pite’s style using improvisation with simple actions such as bending, extension, rotation, contraction, expansion and weight shift.

Through this movement exploration, participants will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the choreographic work Body and Soul. Regardless of their experience, all participants will be able to adapt the experience to their own body and abilities.

The workshop will be given in English on the Zoom platform. Limited number of registrations.

This workshop is an initiative of Danse Danse (Montréal) together with DanceHouse (Vancouver), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto) and the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), in association with Springboard Performance (Calgary).

Jermaine Spivey

Jermaine Maurice Spivey was born in Baltimore, Maryland USA and is a graduate of Baltimore School for the Arts and The Juilliard School. From 2002-2017, Jermaine lived and worked predominately throughout Europe. He has been a company member of Ballet Gulbenkian and Cullberg Ballet, worked as a freelance/guest artist for Hofesh Shechter Company, Robyn Live 2016, The LID, Arias Company and The Forsythe Company from 2013-2015 as well as a cast member of American Repertory Theater’s original production The Shape She Makes conceived by Susan Misner and Jonathan Bernstein. Since 2008, Jermaine has been a member of Crystal Pite’s project-based company Kidd Pivot. He has rehearsal assisted and/or staged Crystal Pite’s work for companies such as Cedar Lake Ballet, Carte Blanche, Hessisches StaatsBallett Wiesbaden, Netherlands Dance Theater and Paris Opera Ballet. Jermaine has instructed dance all across North America and Europe for professional companies, universities, studios and training programs including USC Kaufman School of Dance, Cal Arts, The Juilliard School, UCLA, NYU Tisch, Baltimore School for the Arts, The Performing Arts Project, MOVE NYC, No)one. Art House, Nuova Officina Della Danza and GöteborgsOperans Danskompani. He is a 2001 Princess Grace Awardee and a 1998 National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts 1st Level Awardee. As a choreographer, Jermaine has been commissioned by Salt Contemporary Dance, Rambert 2 and most recently LA Dance project. Jermaine has also created and performed two full-evening works with partner and collaborator Spenser Theberge titled Rather This Then and Position 3.

Top photo: Paris Opera Ballet,  Body and Soul © Julien Benhamou. Bottom L-R: Jermaine Spivey © Jacob Jonas; Jermaine Spivey © Michael Slobodian.