Anyone who has seen a Japanese Noh play will not forget it easily. The poetic speech, the masked characters and their slow, ceremonious behavior, the tiny details that expose a world. Karole Armitage has studied and thought about the form for many years, perhaps while performing in Merce Cunningham’s company or being the resident choreographer for the Ballet de Lorraine (among many other … [Read more...]
Four Companies, Six Dances
Karole Armitage, Jaqulyn Buglisi, Elisa Monte, and Jennifer Muller join forces. As the intermission is winding down, and enthusiastic spectators have resumed their seats, the five choreographers presenting works this June evening walk onto the New Live Arts stage and introduce themselves to us: Karole Armitage, Jaqulyn Buglisi, Elisa Monte, Jennifer Muller, and Tiffany Rea-Fisher … [Read more...]
One Composer, Four Choreographers
Dance celebrates the music of Thomas Adès at New York City Center. “His music moves from here to there in a way that is at heart choreographic.” Music critic and historian James M. Keller wrote those words in a program note for “Thomas Adès: Concentric Paths—Movements in Music,” the Sadler's Wells London’s production of four dances set to Adès scores, an event in Lincoln Center’s White … [Read more...]
Erotic Geometry
When I look closely at a broccoli floret, I don’t ponder fractal geometry; I may marvel at images derived from Fibonacci sequences, but I don’t pretend to understand Walsh functions. Choreographer Karole Armitage might consider me an intellectual wimp. Her Three Theories premiered in 2010 at the World Science Festival. Although Armitage’s new Mechanics of the Dance Machine at New York Live Arts … [Read more...]