Repertoire

The company travels with Artistic Director Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director Christina Johnson, a technical director and 10 dancers.

GAGA-Gaku (2011) Choreography: Karole Armitage  Music: Lois V Vierk 五Guitars (Go Guitars)  and Red Shift  Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor Costumes: 132 5. ISSEY MIYAKE   Performers: 11 dancers  Total Running Time: 25 minutes Gaga-Gaku draws upon the mysterious worlds of Cambodian court dance, Japanese Noh Theater and Balinese dance. The music is rooted in Gagaku, the ancient court music of Japan. It is refined yet roiling with forces from beyond the visible world. Artaud wrote in On The Balinese Theater in 1931 that “the drama does not develop as a conflict of feelings but of states of mind -- portraying the unleashing of cosmic forces and chaos waiting behind the mask of order we try to impose on life. It is an internal conflict.” Composer Lois V Vierk is a student of gagaku. She transforms the ancient music into a caffeinated, trans-cultural present. The sculpted, origami-based costumes by Issey Miyake are conceived in collaboration with a computer scientist and made with recycled materials. The dancers stomp and glide moved by forces they cannot see, each in their own universe. Complex contrapuntal phrases performed by single dancers or groups of dancers whirl beside those that coalesce into states of slow-motion trance. The music courses through their bodies, like the unseen forces that surround us. Touring personnel: Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director, Tech Director, 11 Dancers.
Three Theories (2010) Choreography: Karole Armitage Music: Bang - music by Rhys Chatham, excerpt from “Two Gongs” Relativity – “Raga Jog: Vilambit Ektaal” performed by Sangeeta Shankar (violin) and Ramkumar Misra (tabla) Quantum – original score by Rhys Chatham String – music by John Luther Adams, “Dark Waves” Costume Design: Deanna Berg MacLean Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor Performers: 11 dancers Total Running Time: 1 hour A balletic work that looks at the poetry underlying the pillars of 20th Century theoretical physics - Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics - and the upstart newcomer known as String Theory. It is evidence of the eclectic material that inspires Armitage. “There are forces that move us which we understand; others which we don’t. My dances are the combination of both. The ultimate purpose in bringing together such forces is to create beautiful and symbolically meaningful movement that quickens our sense of the world.” Touring personnel: Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director, Tech Director, 11 Dancers.
Itutu (2009) Choreography: Karole Armitage Music: Burkina Electric and band member Lukas Ligeti Set Design: Philip Taaffe Costumes: Peter Speliopoulos Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor Performers: 10 dancers with 4 Burkina Electric dancer/musicians on stage and 2 musicians in orchestra pit. Total Running Time: 65 minutes ITUTU is collaboration between Armitage Gone! Dance, composer Lukas Ligeti and the West African electronica band, Burkina Electric. The evening-long work mixes vocabularies and sounds from multiple sources. The riveting African pop sounds of Burkina Electric sue th eancient Burkinabé rhythms of Burkina Faso with western club electronica. Armitage’s classical abstractions and traditional African dance translate the polyrhythmic music into a poly-visual form. Western artists have been in a dialogue with African aesthetics since the turn of the last Century. Itutu celebrates that continuum. Touring personnel: Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director, Tech Director, Lighting Supervisor, 11 Dancers, 6 musicians.
Drastic-Classicism (1981/2009) Original Score: Rhys Chatham, Drastic- Classicism Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor Costumes: Peter Speliopoulos and Karen Young Duration: 25 minutes Performers: 11 dancers Drastic-Classicism is one of Armitage’s signature works. It is performed to Rhys Chatham’s clangorous score by guitarists Steven Gunn, Sarah Lipstate, Tom Gerke and audio ensemble TALIBAM! When it premiered in New York thirty years ago, it shocked audiences with its audacity: pairing ballet movement with the raw energy of punk’s wall of sound. Yet, as Arlene Croce wrote at the time, “Classical values that were flayed alive, stayed alive.” Touring personnel: Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director, Tech Director, 3 musicians with 2 local musicians provided by presenter to complete the ensemble.
Ligeti Essays (2006) Choreography: Karole Armitage Music: György Ligeti Set Design: David Salle and Clifton Taylor Costume Design: Peter Speliopoulos Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor Performers: 7 dancers Total Running Time: 25 minutes The dance is choreographed to a suite of three, jewel-like song cycles composed by the late György Ligeti. In these haiku-like compositions, Ligeti expresses the full gamut of our complex and contradictory natures: from the humorous to the trivial and sarcastic, with passages of languorous, beautiful daydreams. The ballet is set off to perfection by David Salle’s stunning set. Touring personnel: Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director, Tech Director. 11 dancers.
The Watteau Duets (1985/2009) Choreography: Karole Armitage Original Score: David Linton, The Simpleton’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Music Costumes: Movement 1 & 4: Original Costumes by Charles Atlas; Movement 2, 3, 5 & 6: Costumes by Peter Speliopoulos Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor Musicians: TALIBAM! - Matt Mottel and Kevin Shea  Performers: 2 dancers and 2 musicians.   Total Running Time: 25 minutes. Also full length version 40 minutes. The title for The Watteau Duets is taken from the French artist, Jean-Antoine Watteau whose 18th Century paintings depicted characters in the comedy of love. In this 20th Century look at the subject, the idealized baroque vision of the delight is turned into what the French call a apache dance - a battle of the sexes depicted as a war dance with a sense of humor. Pointe shoes, rather than being ethereal, are used as weapons. David Linton's score, one of the firs tot ever use sampling, mixes live music with a recorded track. The musicians not only play a variety of instruments from drums to gongs and keyboards, but also engage in an existential comedy in counterpoint to the dancers. During the duets, the audience sees the couple go form secret mutual interest, to complicity and erotic pleasure followed by settling in with hang-ups and bemusement. Touring personnel: Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director, Tech Director, 11 dancers.
Wild Thing (1987) Choreography: Karole Armitage Music: Jimi Hendrix Set: Jeff Koons Costumes: David Salle Lighting Design: Clifton Taylor Performers: 2 dancers Total Running Time: 8 minutes. Wild Thing is an excerpt from a full-length work called GoGo Ballerina, which premiered in what was then New York’s most beautiful, and dangerous underground club, The World, on Avenue B. During our performances there, three bodies were found in the back room. Wild Thing can be performed as an hors d’oeuvre, opening a program and is often followed by Drastic – Classicism after a brief pause. Touring personnel: Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director, Tech Director, 11 dancers.
Made in Naples (2009) Choreography: Karole Armitage Music: John Adams, Rhys Chatham, Ensemble Novecento, György Ligeti, Jeffrey Lohn, Marco Messina, The Sex Pistols, David Shea, Carl Stalling, Igor Stravinsky, Tammurriata dei Monti Lattari, Libera Velo, Martin Wheeler Painted Panels: Karen Kilimnik Silk Curtains: David Salle Costumes and Props: Alba Clemente Lighting Design: Barbara Mugnai Performers: 11 dancers Total Running Time: 45 min. Made in Naples was inspired by the Neapolitan Commedia dell’Arte character, Pulcinella, whose ever-shifting nature has made him one of the great archetypes. Pulcinella’s character can be bawdy or aristocratic, orderly or anarchic. Pulcinella embodies the unruly, farcical, merrymaking nature of humankind, desiring only to eat, drink and love, though his path is always strewn with obstacles. The production is a contemporary Vaudeville – a kaleidoscope of acts. Made in Naples moves from comedy to romance; from popular culture to aristocratic and intellectual traditions with animal acts, acrobatics, a hint of politics, pure dance, and nods to Commedia dell’Arte thrown in. Touring personnel: Karole Armitage, Rehearsal Director, Christina Johnson, a technical director. Prop and wardrobe supervisor, 11 dancers.