Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young, Assembly Hall review: Dancing into... a meeting room?

The latest collaboration between choreographer Crystal Pite and writer Jonathon Young, set at a medieval reenactment society’s annual general meeting, blends fantasy with the everyday

Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young’s ‘Assembly Hall' (Michael Slobodian)

Setting up the meeting room, checking the agenda, dealing with the body left on the floor: Assembly Hall swoops from mundane to mythic and back again. Starting with a medieval re-enactment society’s annual general meeting, it becomes its own kind of quest. It’s very funny, and surprisingly tender.

Assembly Hall is the latest collaboration between choreographer Crystal Pite and writer Jonathon Young, following the devastating Betroffenheit and the unsettling Revisor. Created for Pite’s own company Kidd Pivot, it’s a distinctive strand of dance theatre, sitting alongside the ballets Pite has made for companies around the world. 

Young’s text is spoken on the soundtrack, amplified by the dancers’ body language. The eight characters come together for what may be their group’s final meeting: costs are rising, attendance is falling, they’ve only got the hall until six. Jay Gower Taylor’s set is a well-worn venue, with battered chairs, glowing exit signs, and a basketball hoop hanging over a raised stage.