Jacob's Pillow Dance Presents 'Armitage Gone! '
BECKET, Mass. — Jacob’s Pillow Dance will present "Armitage Gone! Dance in Three Theories," from Wednesday, July 14 through Sunday, July 18. The new contemporary ballet work was choreographed by artistic director Karole Armitage and inspired by physicist Brian Greene’s best-selling book "The Elegant Universe."A former member of the Ballet du Grand Theatre de Genève, Armitage has worked with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Merce Cunningham, and Madonna, and her dance repertoire ranges from ballet to a Tony Award nomination for the Broadway show, "Hair."
Armitage recently created a world premiere, "Red," on the dancers of Ballet Program of The School at Jacob’s Pillow in just four days, which premiered at the Season Opening Gala on June 19.
Greene’s book "The Elegant Universe" details the inherent conflict between the two great pillars of modern theoretical physics, quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity. It ventures into the ideas emerging from attempts to resolve the conflict, particularly string theory. Using concepts specific to each theory as a springboard to generate inventive movement, Armitage has created a contemporary ballet work in three distinct sections. Each section, "Relativity," "Quantum" and "String," is defined by its own dance structure and musical language. For Armitage, contemporary physics is replete with visual metaphor and she uses such principles as a means for exploring new possibilities in movement and spatial patterning.
A work for 11 dancers, "Three Theories" is set to a commissioned score by maverick composer Rhys Chatham, Sangeeta Shankar’s South Indian Classical Carnatic violin music, and John Luther Adams’s evocative "Dark Waves." The dance features stark lighting design by longtime collaborator Clifton Taylor and costumes by Deanna Berg.
Armitage began her career in 1973 as a member of the Ballet du Grand Theatre de Genève, Switzerland—a company devoted at the time exclusively to the repertory of George Balanchine—and she later danced with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Throughout the 1980s, she led her own New York-based company and in 1987, Rudolf Nureyev asked Armitage to create a work for Paris Opera Ballet. Its success led to many European commissions and in 1990 Armitage chose to maintain her company on a project basis to pursue work with major European ballet and opera companies. She has created dances for numerous companies including the White Oak Dance Project, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Lyon Opera Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and most recently, Bern Ballet and Kansas City Ballet.
She has directed operas from the baroque and contemporary repertoire for many of the prestigious houses of Europe including Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Theatre du Châtelet in Paris, the Lyric Opera in Athens, and Het Muzik Theater in Amsterdam. She has worked on several feature films, including The Golden Bowl and The White Countess by filmmakers Merchant and Ivory and has choreographed for pop icons Madonna and Michael Jackson. Over the years Armitage has collaborated with a distinguished array of visual artists including Thomas Adès, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Jeff Koons, Christian Lacroix, David Salle, and Brice Marden.
In 2004, Armitage returned to New York and launched Armitage Gone! Dance in 2005. In 2009 she was nominated for a Best Choreography Tony Award for the Broadway hit Hair. Armitage Gone! Dance has performed in the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow in 2006 and as part of a Jacob’s Pillow/Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art co-presentation in 2007.
For ticket information, visit www.jacobspillow.org or call 413-243-0745.
