Choreographer Crystal Pite has collaborated with Complicité Artistic Director Simon McBurney on this trilogy of works that examine, according to the press release, "their hopes and fears for our current moment" for the human race—its attitudes and impact on each other and on the world as a whole—from different perspectives. Figures in Extinction [1.0] the list premièred in The Hague in 2022 and came over to London the year after; Figures in Extinction [2.0] but then you come to the humans followed last February, but Figures in Extinction [3.0] requiem is new. Manchester audiences are privileged to be the first to see both the concluding part of the trilogy and the full piece brought together as one.
The title of the opening section, the list, refers to a list of things lost due to human activity, most of which are animals who have become figures of extinction, opening with an impressively physical solo from a muscular dancer with two large, twisted horns to represent the Pyrenean Ibex (there was no programme so I can't credit any of the performers or designers by name). Other lost species are represented by single or groups of dancers, their movements often based on those of the animal, danced not generally to music but to Simon McBurney's spoken commentary with other sounds mixed in (the audio tracks for all three are very cleverly assembled).
But it's not all animals: the Helheim Glacier is also represented, as is the Spider Orchid, before we get to more familiar species such as the Northern White Rhino, then there is the Passenger Pigeon—I still remember reading, when I was very young, about how the flocks were so large that the skies went dark as they passed overhead, then humans shot them for food, until the last one died in Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
In the middle of this is someone referred to as Climate Change Denier, with an evangelical American voice lip-synced by the dancer spouting science 'scepticism' and evoking God and the principal of individual choice to reject the evidence, at one point flanked by two cheerleaders wearing cartoonish rabbit heads.
After the first interval, but then you get to the humans begins with said humans sat in chairs facing the audience with a child's voice asking why they aren't moving, then gleefully pointing out when one of them does—to check her device and send a text.
This goes on to a lecture on the soundtrack, with the performers taking it in turns to lip-sync to it, about the human brain, firstly dismissing the popular misconception about left- and right-brained people being predominantly creative or logical—both sides of the brain are used for both of those types of activity—before explaining the real differences between them and the role of the frontal lobe in the human brain that acts as an inhibitor and allows people to outwit others, or to empathise with them. After explaining the biological make-up of the human brain, the narrator concludes that our modern world is setting us up for an "explosion of mental illness".
A second interval, then we get to requiem, which does contain some recognisable requiem music, including Mozart's, amongst the voice-over and other sounds, and is about death, but not in a maudlin or morbid way. The dancers step forward and speak of people they have lost, but fondly rather than sadly, often touching the ground as they mention their names. McBurney's voice tells us that the dead surround the living.
A black cube descends than flies again to reveal a hospital room with a bed, occupied, as the orderlies go through an almost pantomimic routine of removing a sheet from under the patient. The family enters and has a discussion about whether she (the patient) is aware when they speak to her in a deathbed scene familiar to many of us: just waiting. Dancers cover one another with white sheets to look like an accident scene or the aftermath of a bombing or battle often seen on the TV. McBurney tells us that we tend now to think of the dead as "the eliminated", but they are part of us.
Like other Complicité works, this triptych disguises layers of meaning behind simple, conversational storytelling, with Pite's distinctive moves, executed with commitment and precision by this large company, becoming part of the story, not simply decoration, as are the lighting and projections, which integrate with the movement and sound to become all one in an impressive piece of total theatre.
If you have booked for this, you are in for a treat, but if not, you will be very lucky to get a ticket.