‘The unknowable is not nothing’: Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney on the mysteries of Figures in Extinction

‘We are all inescapably part of this living world’ … Figures in Extinction [1.0] at Sadler's Wells, London, in 2023. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

To one side of this light-filled studio at Nederlands Dans Theater in the Hague are director Simon McBurney and choreographer Crystal Pite. McBurney is as still and reflective as a lake, though you sense the currents of contemplation moving behind his eyes. Next to him, Pite can barely stay on her chair and her arms keep rising up in urgency and encouragement. Both are facing the other side of the studio, where the company’s outstanding dancers are crafting a new piece, working through details of timing and spacing as they test the viability of different moves. At the centre of it all stands a deathbed.

It’s a shock at first, but it makes sense. Pite and McBurney are working on the last part of a trilogy called Figures in Extinction. The idea of extinction has evolved over the course of these three pieces: the first focused on non-human life forms; the second on neurological connections between our inner and outer worlds; and the third – well, that’s what they’re finding out right now.