At a time when the ballet world is so devoid of originiality that the world's foremost ballet company decides to stage a fourth Romeo and Juliet, Karole Armitage and her modern dance company, Armitage Gone! Dance, bring innovation and color to the College this weekend.
True to her reputation as "punk ballerina," dancer-choreographer Armitage creates work that juxtaposes classical technique with modernity. Merging a Western art form with Asian philosophy, she uses dancers' bodies to explore human psychology and shatter racial barriers.
Armitage Gone! Dance presents two magnificent pieces. The first, entitled "The Ligeti Essays," is choreographed to a collection of 15 operatic songs by renowned composer Gyrgy Ligeti, who is best known for the theme of "2001: A Space Odyssey."
"'The Ligeti Essays' represents intellectual curiosity," Armitage said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "It's really influenced by Asian thought. It's as if we're forming calligraphy using a person's body."
The Asian undertones of "The Ligeti Essays" are striking. Much like the movies of Ang Lee or Wong Kar Wai, the dances are very visual. Armitage experiments with various combinations of dances, such as duets, pas de deux, solos and group dances with three or four people.
This type of staging, common in Asian cinema, allows Armitage to varying the theme of the works. The first half of this tour de force is a ballabile, in which the entire corps holds entrancing lanterns.
"The Ligeti Essays" showcases Armitage's aesthetic: the dancers are not required to complete moves of classical ballet and must pull off awkward positions never before found in the French or Russian court, but they move with the grace of molten gold.
The second work, "Time is the echo of an axe within wood," is inspired partially by her two favorite ballets. This piece inherits the theme of the sacred "Swan Lake", whose set deisgn, choreography and costumes cannot be altered -- that love, regardess of circumstance, is never untimely.
"Time" explores the human psyche in a manner inspired by Balanchine's "The Four Temperaments," a piece based on a personality test that drew on the traits of Greek figures like Apollo, Dionysus, Epimetheus and Prometheus.
The beauty of Armitage Gone! Dance is enhanced by David Salle's postmodern set design. Known for seemingly nonsensical collocations of images that resemble Dalis and Picassos, Salle reins in this style to create an austere, Zen-like stage.
The originality of Armitage's style reflects her training in dance. Born in Lawrence, Kans., Armitage began ballet at the age of five with a New York City Ballet dancer, Tomi Worthan.
"Everyone was so excited about [Worthan] because at the time Balanchine was so glamorous, even more than fashion models," Armitage told The Dartmouth.
Armitage spent her summers in Colorado and danced for Ballet West. She recalls hiking over a mountain to get to rehearsals. Now, she feels the experience instilled in her the "frontier spirit," which she brings to her dancing. Later, she would train with the legendary George Balanchine, New York City Ballet's balletmaster in chief. She has also been commissioned to work with superstars Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev.
Leaving Balanchine's Geneva Opera Ballet, Armitage joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Cunningham was a 2007 fall Montgomery Fellow at the College. Armitage compared the change to learning a new language.
"It was extremely exciting, learning a new style," Armitage said. "Balanchine is very precise, refined and historical while Cunningham was more visceral than ethereal."
Armitage also described the different body types expected by the two choreographers. Balanchine was a strict adherent to the Greek golden mean - he wanted his dancers tall, with a small head and long limbs and necks. Cunningham, meanwhile, preferred his dancers more muscular.
Armitage herself, can be credited as being just as revolutionary with her dancers as her mentors were. In a society where ballet companies are suggesting black ballerinas leave because they would never progress beyond the corps and telling those of East Asian descent that their bodies simply are not suited for dance, Armitage has assembled a company in which half the dancers are racial minorities.
Armitage Gone! Dance will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, October 3 and Saturday, October 4 in Moore Theater at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
