Armitage Gone! Dance

Since she literally knocked the dance world off balance as the “punk ballerina”, choreographer Karole Armitage has received worldwide acclaim for her explosive, shocking, beautiful and visionary work.

Armitage trained and performed in the Balanchine tradition but made an extraordinary leap to modern dance when invited by Merce Cunningham to join his company in 1976. With a unique and acute understanding of the aesthetic values of Balanchine and Cunningham, Armitage has created her own “voice” in the dichotomy of classical and modern and is seen by some critics as the true choreographic heir the two masters of twentieth-century American dance.

Having worked extensively in Europe for fifteen years, Armitage returned to New York in 2005, dedicating herself to her company of eleven extraordinary dancers and collaborating with major artists from the contemporary art world and the avant-garde music scene. All are working with her to explore the boundaries of post-modern dance.

The following principles guide her creative process:
Seek beauty.
Show mutability.
Move like a blaze of consciousness.
Perfection is the devil.
Express the eroticism of gravity.

In keeping with this mandate, Armitage Gone! Dance has built a remarkable repertory in a very short period. Two new full-length ballets were created last season. The first, Itutu received its premiere at BAM’s NEXT Wave Festival and has also been performed outdoors at Celebrate Brooklyn! Itutu, “a sexy, richly layered hit” (NY Times) is very popular with audiences. Created and performed in collaboration with Lukus Ligeti and Burkina Electric, the score mixes African pop, Western club electronica and the ancient rhythms of Burkinabé. Philip Taaffe created the designs for the exuberant backdrops and costume fabrics.
The second work, Three Theories is inspired by physicist Brian Greene’s best-selling book “The Elegant Universe.” It premiered at the University of Illinois’ Krannert Center and has been presented in New York under the auspices of the 2010 World Science Festival and this past summer at Jacob’s Pillow.

Other works in the company’s touring rep include Made in Naples which premiered in 2007 at the Napoli Teatro Festival Italia and was seen in New York at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2010; Ligeti Essays and Time is the Echo of an Axe Within a Wood (which the NY Times called “one of the most beautiful dances to be seen in New York in a very long time”); and re-workings of her landmark punk classics The Watteau Duets and Drastic Classicism which will be excerpted this fall at the Abrons Art Center in NYC as part of the art center’s education initiative.