“I always loved dancing, but it was watching these professional performers that really inspired me to make a life out of it.”

 - Renée Sigouin

Kidd Pivot is a dance theatre company founded by Canadian choreographer and artistic director Crystal Pite. Ahead of the UK premiere of its latest show, Assembly Hall, opening at Sadler’s Wells next week, we sat down with one of the ensemble’s performers, Renée Sigouin.

Renée joined the video call from Serbian capital Belgrade, where the company had just arrived to perform at the Belgrade Dance Festival in The Serbian National Theatre. It is the first leg of Assembly Hall’s international tour, following a six-week run on home turf in Canada.

Assembly Hall follows a group of medieval re-enactors who have come together for their Annual General Meeting. As the Board of Directors, they oversee an event called ‘Quest Fest’ that has fallen on hard times: membership is dwindling, debt is mounting, and the hall is falling apart. As the meeting progresses, the line between real and re-enactment begins to blur, ancient forces are awoken, and it soon becomes clear that there is something much more at stake here than a mock-medieval tournament.

Tell me about yourself and what inspired you to go into dance?

I grew up on a farm in a small town in Saskatchewan, Canada. I started figure skating from aged 3 and loved it, but always knew I wanted to be a dancer – I begged my parents to let me start lessons. I was lucky to see a lot of professional companies perform, and remember seeing Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal when I was in high school when Crystal (Crystal Pite, Founder & Artistic Director of Kidd Pivot) was resident choreographer. I always loved dancing, but it was watching these professional performers that really inspired me to make a life out of it.

What does it mean to you to be able to show the best of Canadian dance to an international audience?

I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of touring internationally with several Vancouver-based companies. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities this has given me to meet members of the international artistic community and the cultural exchange that comes with that. I’m really proud of the work that we’ve been able to show to audiences across the world. 

Kidd Pivot’s latest show, Assembly Hall, was created by Artistic Director Crystal Pite and Playwright in Residence Jonathon Young. What was the creative process like for this production?

Crystal and Jonathan work so closely together, it’s a very collaborative process. Each production comes together over several years – we had our first introduction to what later became Assembly Hall in December 2022. The first meeting was with Jonathan, Crystal, and the design team, including Video Designer Cybèle Young and Voice Director Meg Roe.

You start to get a sense of this gigantic world Crystal and Jonathan have been thinking up and from which the script is then refined. We had our initial creation period the following June and July – we were given little snippets of the script with voiceovers to play with as scenes and were assigned characters to improvise. Jonathan and Crystal typically have a good idea of who would work well for each role from quite early on in the process.

They’ll suggest a blocking idea and we’ll do our version of a ‘cold read’ with voiceovers and craft our movement from there. Some sections are more abstract, and Crystal will encourage us to improvise and develop a way of moving together. Crystal then goes in and crafts everything in more detail before the second round of rehearsals where the actors re-do the voiceovers with edits from John. We don’t get the full script until this stage.

Throughout the process there’s a lot of room for dancers to propose a movement language. We know how Crystal works and how the wider team sets the movement to voice and dialogue – both Crystal and Jonathan love it when people toss out ideas.

What themes do you see as central to Assembly Hall?

We’ve talked a lot about death being at the heart of the show, and what it means to be alive. Death encompasses a lot of different things – grief, loss, endings, but also a new beginning. To be alive means we’re also dying, and Assembly Hall explores how mortality makes life more beautiful and more precious. It’s very symbolic – on the surface we have these fairly mundane characters at an AGM, but underneath there’s this non-mundane world centred around their shared mythology that exists on a spiritual realm.

There’s a rich history behind the production. Were there any stories or sources you drew from during the rehearsal process?

We’re very lucky to have such a talented group of creatives working on these productions. Nancy (Nancy Bryant, Costume Designer) and Cybèle (Cybèle Young, Video Design) have such vast knowledge of artistic history. Throughout the rehearsal and creative process, I remember looking at medieval anthologies, photos of historic artefacts and paintings. Crystal and Jonathon also have such rich imaginations. We spent a lot of time thinking and in conversation as a group before anything came to life. 

I remember reading a short story early in the rehearsal process called ‘An Unexpected Reunion’ by German writer Johann Peter Hebel. It’s about a miner who dies in an accident just days before marrying his beloved fiancée. Years later, when the mine is being excavated, workers come across his body, which has been perfectly preserved by iron sulphate – and he is reunited with his lover in her old age. This story didn’t make it into the final script, but it really stuck with me. We had this idea that the re-enactors we’re playing are also archivists, and so are responsible themselves for creating this sense of shared mythology.

What do you hope audience members take away from Assembly Hall?

I try not to have expectations about how audiences respond to shows, as our response to a work of art is often so personal – I can think of so many times I’ve encountered a performance or artwork that has unexpectedly helped or healed me in that moment. I want people to receive whatever it is they need from our performance, but I do hope that they leave with a sense of hope and appreciation for the connections in their lives.

Instagram: @rensig

Kidd Pivot is at Sadler’s Wells Theatre 20 - 23 March 2024. Find out more and buy tickets here.

Interview by Ellen Hodgetts