Figures in Extinction review – Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney’s impassioned response to the climate crisis

‘Textured, varied, utterly beautiful’: Figures in Extinction [3.0] requiem. Photograph: Rahi Rezvani

One of Crystal Pite’s most distinctive qualities as a choreographer is her willingness to grapple with the society around her, to craft works that engage with the issues of our time – bureaucratic bungling (Revisor), global diplomacy (The Statement), mass migration (Light of Passage).

Theatre guru Simon McBurney of the groundbreaking Complicité has a similar belief in the power of art to change the world. Together over the past four years, with the exceptional dancers of Nederlands Dans Theater, they have forged Figures in Extinction – a work of serious thought, urgent entreaty and utterly sumptuous dance around the questions of human-made climate change and its effect on the planet.