Armitage Gone! Dance

After fifteen years of choreographing and directing ballets and operas in Europe, Karole Armitage returned to New York in 2005 to launch her company, Armitage Gone! Dance, on a full-time basis.

Armitage formed her first company in 1979. In 1981, The New Yorker dance critic Arlene Croce wrote, “It is seldom that a young choreographer makes a debut doing a new thing that is exactly the right thing. Karole Armitage's debut, two years ago, was so startlingly new and so right..." In 1985, Armitage formed The Armitage Ballet, a company of twelve that toured to festivals and venues worldwide. In 1993, Time Magazine declared, "Armitage has emerged as a mature, original choreographer."

Throughout the 1990s, Armitage chose to maintain her company on a project basis while accepting commissions from European ballet and opera companies. In 2004, The Joyce Theater in New York City invited Armitage to create a new ballet and she formed a company of dancers for the project. Of this performance, Jennifer Dunning wrote in The New York Times, "Karole Armitage's Time is the Echo of an Axe Within a Wood,... is one of the most beautiful dances to be seen in New York in a very long time." 

Inspired by the passion and skill of her dancers and the warm reception to her 2004 New York season, Armitage decided to form a company in New York on a full-time basis. The new company consists of 7-12 members. They come from several countries and have diverse dance backgrounds, though all are primarily trained in classical ballet. They have performed in major companies and now seek to do innovative work that has personal meaning for them.

Armitage Gone! Dance's first season included an unprecedented three-week engagement at New York's The Duke on 42nd Street, where the company presented the world premiere of In This Dream That Dogs Me. Armitage Gone! Dance garnered an enthusiastic response from audiences and critics alike. John Rockwell of The New York Times said,“Karole Armitage is home at last. This is a good thing...A winner...Armitage Gone! Dance is a most welcome addition to the local dance scene, and one hopes a harbinger of even more ambitious projects by this gifted choreographer." In 2006, the Guggenheim Museum invited the company to create a new piece, Visual Brainstorming, for the "Works & Process” Series. The excitement generated by these engagements led to performances in Italy, Mexico and France and tours to such prestigious American venues as the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Lied Center. 

Highlights of the company's recent activities include two 2009 world premiers in Italy, engagements in Venice, Turin, San Francisco, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Long Beach, CA, and at MASS MoCA and Dartmouth College. In our home community of New York City, the company gave an acclaimed season at the Joyce Theater (January 2008), participated in New York City Center's popular Fall For Dance Festival, Collaborated with Gotham Opera on a production of Ariadne Unhinged, and performed in the Guggenheim Museum's “Works & Process” series (where the company showed the first phase of Armitage's new work inspired by The Elegant Universe, a collaboration with string-theory physicist and author Brian Greene). In March 2009 the company presented “Think Punk” - a two-week, New York City season featuring revivals of Armitage's landmark dances, Drastic-Classicism and Watteau Duets, all to live music. The company premiered Summer of Love at Teatro Bellini in Catania, Sicily in May 2009 and in June the company premiered Made in Naples at the Napoli Teatro Festival Italia. A work in 15 scenes inspired by Pulcinella and the city of his origin, the production features sets by artist Karen Kilimnik and costumes by Alba Clemente. Most recently, the company premiered Itutu at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House during the 2009 Next Wave festival, Nov. 4-4, 2009, and toured with Itutu  to the Salle Garnier at the Opera de Monte Carlo. Armitage Gone! Dance also performed Made in Naples at "Works & Process" at the Guggenheim Museum and toured to Ludwig Forum in Aachen, Germany, and the Grand Theatre Verviers in Belgium. In the spring, the company premiered Three Theories, a new evening-long work inspired by Brian Green's "The Elegant Universe" at the Krannert Center in Illinois. It premiered in NYC during the 2010 World Science Festival, June 3-6.