This week has been rich.

Rich in reminders of what keeps me living in Manchester, nearly 25 years after moving here. And it will be no surprise to regular readers (hi mum) that a mainstay of these reasons is the cultural offerings the city bestows.

Over the last week, I’ve been lucky enough to experience some wonderfully diverse productions (Escaped Alone and What If If Only – Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Ad Infinitum: Last Rites at Lowry Theatre, then last night I had a long-awaited return to Aviva Studios, home of Factory International, the brilliant people who bring us Manchester International Festival (back again this year!).

The last time I visited for a show, the venue hadn’t officially opened but you’d be forgiven for thinking it had, given the high spec of the space and certainly the production in question (Afrodeutsche – Manchester International Festival 2023).

High praise indeed. But brace. Last night saw the world premiere of Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney’s complete dance trilogy, Figures in Extinction (Factory International, Nederlands Dans Theater and Complicite).

Over the last four years, fuelled by the urgency of the time, choreographer Crystal Pite and Complicite artistic director and co-founder, Simon McBurney, have weaved their hopes and fears for our current moment into the dance trilogy Figures in Extinction…a cross-continental conversation split into an evening of three startling, half-hour works fusing dance, performance, spoken word, documentary and music.

So far so…impressive-sounding. But what does this mean?

Let’s break it down.

Figures in Extinction 1.0 the list – a sweeping exploration of species and environments we have lost and are losing.

Figures in Extinction 2.0 but then you come to the humans – a searing look at our need for connection in a separated world.

Figures in Extinction 3.0 requiem – offering a spark in the darkness as to where we might go next through a mixture of dance, video and spoken word.

You had to be there, is often a phrase, which I feel is apt for much of what I’m fortunate to go and see, but not as a lazy cop-out (although calling my blog You Had to Be There and throwing in the odd picture, would certainly speak to there being no substitute for experiencing works of art and entertainment in the flesh, as it were, but would also speak to the suggestion that there was little point to my blogging at all – no jokes at the back), but because descriptions, no matter how technical, colourful, factual or imaginative, are difficult to land in the way you wish or need them to.

The three above descriptions of each piece of art can give a slight indication as to what’s happening, but like life in general, even if your interest is piqued, there are no guarantees when committing an hour or two to an experience. No matter whether the detail of the description in a preview or review piece, you’re taking a risk and putting blind faith in bearing witness to an experience.

I can’t speak to what you will feel if you see this trilogy, how you will interpret it or even if you will have it down as a great night out at the theatre. But I can speak to my own experience and even throw in a few of my lay person’s basic yet hectic thoughts as to the level of talent on show.

The level was high, just so you know.

So we’ll do this a little differently and more than I usually do, centre in on the feelings evoked, with a little thrown in on the execution of what got me there.

Figures in Extinction 1.0 the list – a sweeping exploration of species and environments we have lost and are losing.

Our introduction to the trilogy and for me the most moving and beautiful. The dancers in turn became the species we knew to be extinct, or close to, as their names were starkly projected before us. These were frogs, birds, fish, glaciers, bodies of water and the list continued. There was no discrimination between categories of life we are so intent on compartmentalising.

Indeed, there was a pre-show talk in the main space of Aviva as press, guests and visitors alike sat, watched, listened, collected tickets, queued for pizza and drinks and conversed (sounds chaotic but the space was shared effectively all the same), where amongst much regarding the inspiration and history of the piece from the co-creators, I learned that the term ‘nature’ had recently been redefined to include ‘humans’.

And I took this fact with me to the performance and indeed it remained a theme for me that was a thread throughout each of the ‘acts’.

The choreography was mesmerising; the artistry of movement synchronising perfectly with projections and accompanying music and sounds, the acceleration of the work increasing in pace to depict the urgency of the situation and I went into the first interval emotional, sad and torn between wrestling with feelings of futility along with anger that my feeling like this was part of the problem.

I was ready to take 15 minutes, buy a fizzy vimto (what) and wonder where we would go from here (in every respect).

Figures in Extinction 2.0 but then you come to the humans – a searing look at our need for connection in a separated world.

Ah now this section. I was already over the humans before we turned to the humans (see 1.0). Including myself.

We were turning to science and theories of the brain. Freeze, fight, flight – we’ll all be familiar with this response to external factors. What if we dig deeper into the neuroscience. The make-up of the brain which controls our different functions, drives our thinking and dictates empathy and a yearn for connection, versus the hemisphere which is driving a more practical and sharp focus on the world around us and getting the job done.

We’re in the metaphorical classroom for this section. And if my responses to 1.0 were immediate, clear to me and heavy on emotion, we’d turned into quite a different avenue in 2.0.

I was tense. And not just because I was conditioned into waiting for the test at the end of the lecture to suddenly present itself. Whilst the first part of the trilogy was uncomfortable and devastating, I was at ease with how I was feeling. Not because it was happy, but because it was straightforward and a no-brainer (excuse the loose pun). I guess I’m more in tune with my own sorrow than tension, concentration and irritation.

For the science aside, I realised my feelings towards the dancers when depicted as, well, humans in their human clothes, with their human actions and their human lives, with human tendencies, were in a wholly different place to my unconditional accepting of and sympathy towards our species from the first section.

Guess it’s too close to home when it’s your own, so to speak. But the execution of the messaging slowly breaking through was again impressive, seamless (the lip-synching be it to the words of scientists or instagram influencers) added both humour and depth to the sounds and visuals of the accompanying choreography and on screen projections.

I’m still thinking on this…

Figures in Extinction 3.0 requiem – offering a spark in the darkness as to where we might go next through a mixture of dance, video and spoken word.

Ok, so here we are at the death part. Death. I feel myself sitting up in my seat again. This is going to speak to my appreciation of the macabre. I’m examining my own psyche, as I realise my tension is dissipating and I find myself almost finding myself in a comfort zone.

Who am I? Really?

It didn’t last. So, yes, I guess I was being challenged again, entering another area of discomfort, but one that I was more tolerant of.

And here it came, Mozart’s Requiem. A family standing around a hospital bed, a loved one nearing the end, slipping away as medical professionals methodically but respectfully performed tasks such as changing bed sheets, calling the time of death, breaking the news to family members…

Possibly a ‘you had to be there’ moment here, but I was captivated by this next part. We were taken through the 5 stages of decomposition, accompanied by a jazz number which deliciously and purposely jarred and distracted from the uncomfortable truth of how our bodies eventually break down in death. It will be no surprise to anyone who knows me that I was already familiar with the stages and so sat back and enjoyed the percussion led soundtrack.

What moved me more was the concept put forward of the dead versus the living, and how the latter outnumber, surround and inhabit us through our ancestry to the point where it’s less ‘us’ and ‘them’, but simply ‘us’.

Being alive has never felt so…fleeting. Perspective is a powerful thing and this presented theory certainly made me think on our responsibilities to our earth and fellow species as we temporarily take our place in a line where many have done before (and many will indeed come to replace us), in a state where our actions have physical consequences.

There are no owners of nature, merely visiting peers and tenants, who need to put in a shift whilst here to ensure that there is a ‘here’ for those next on the rota.

Blimey.

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I could tell you more of the artistic techniques, sweeping choreography, puppetry, voiceovers and the relief it was to communally laugh and poke fun at the depiction of the climate change denier (whilst trying to ignore the disbelief and horror which always accompanies such an encounter), the way that the dancers start off as figures with bodies contorting and free-flowing into depictions of nature, to gradually becoming more visible and recognisable as humans as they stepped into the light and were given names, back stories of their origin…

But. You had, no have, to be there.

Figures in Extinction is at Aviva Studios until Saturday 22 February. Visit https://factoryinternational.org/whats-on/figures-in-extinction/ for details and tickets.