Grant Recipients Grants to Artists Dance 2004

Karole Armitage

A portrait of Karole Armitage smiling to the left. She has a blonde pixie haircut and wears a black tank top.
Photo by Marco Mignani.
  • 2004 Grants to Artists
  • Dance
  • Choreographer, Director of Armitage Gone!
  • Born Lawrence, KS, 1954
  • Lives in New York, NY
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  • Additional Information
  • armitagegonedance.org

The production of In this dream that dogs me supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts has greatly expanded the company's public profile and increased our visibility in the community. The prestigious affiliation with Foundation for Contemporary Arts has enabled Armitage Gone! Dance to fulfill our goals of further establishing a strong creative and administrative foundation, a stable future, and increased opportunities for the company.

- Karole Armitage, January 18, 2006

Artist Statement

Seek beauty.

Show mutability.

Move like a blaze of consciousness.

Perfection is the devil.

Express the eroticism of gravity.

On the technical side, my dances are practical experiments in balance. The foot, leg, arm, and trunk of the body distribute the energy of movement in new ways. The gestures frequently look improvisatory and feel as if the dancers are creating them for themselves. The unexpected combinations, off-balance motions, breaks, and accelerations all serve to convey emotions and ideas which contribute to the larger symbolic implications of the work.

Ideally my dances create a sense of awe, transporting audiences to a realm where, as in nature, the world feels enormous and the self is small. My goal is that the artful, expressive movement of my dancers will in turn move audiences to contemplate the mystery of their own lives.

There are forces that move us which we understand; others which we don't. My dances are combinations 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.

- 2014

Biography

Karole Armitage was trained in classical ballet and is known for contemporary works that blend dance, music, science, and art to engage in philosophical questions. She joins a legacy of process-focused experimental dance, bringing it to the language of ballet and modern dance.

As a professional dancer, Armitage performed in George Balanchine's Grand Théâtre de Genève Company and in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Armitage created her first piece in 1978 and led her own company, The Armitage Ballet, throughout the 1980s. She directed the Ballet of Florence, Italy from 1995 to 1999; she served as resident choreographer for the Ballet de Lorraine in France from 1999 to 2004. Armitage is director of the New York-based Armitage Gone! Dance Company. Her works include Drastic-Classicism (1981/2009), The Watteau Duets (1985/2009), Rave (2001), and Time is the echo of an axe within a wood (2004).

With the support of her 2004 Grants to Artists award, Armitage created In this dream that dogs me (2005), with a score by Annie Gosfield and design by David Salle. Since receiving her 2004 FCA grant, Armitage has created Ligeti Essays (2006), Connoisseurs of Chaos (2008), Made in Naples (2009), Itutu (2009), Three Theories (2010), GAGA-Gaku (2011), Mechanics of the Dance Machine (2013), and Four Seasons—A Spinning Planet (2014).

Armitage has created works for companies including The Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, the Ballet de Monte Carlo, Lyon Opera Ballet, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, The Washington Ballet, The Kansas City Ballet, and the Tasmanian Dance Company in Australia. She has choreographed productions for the New York Philharmonic and directed operas at Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Armitage's other projects include Broadway productions, videos for Madonna and Michael Jackson, several films for Merchant Ivory productions, and the Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna. She has collaborated with contemporary and experimental composers such as Rhys Chatham, Vijay Iyer, Lukas Ligeti, and John Luther Adams. Artists such as Jeff Koons, David Salle, Phillip Taaffe, and Brice Marden have designed sets and costumes for her works.

After her 2004 Grants to Artists award, Armitage was nominated for a Tony for her choreography of the Broadway musical Hair in 2009 and in the same year, she was named Commandeur of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. She was an Artist in Residence at the Chinati Foundation in 2012. Prior to her 2004 FCA grant, Armitage received a 1986 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.

Armitage is a graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts. In 2013, she received an honorary Doctorate of the Arts from the University of Kansas.

A black and white photograph of a performer dressed in dark rompers in front of a long and curved aluminum duct hung from above. The performer bends their left arm and leg while extending their right arm and leg. The stage has a light color floor and a dark backdrop.
Performance still from FCPA-supported In this Dream that Dogs Me, 2005. Photo by Tom Brazil.
A black and white photograph of two performers in front of a long and curved aluminum duct hung from above. The performer on the left wearing a pair of pants plucks the strings of a cello while looking down at the music stand. The performer on the right wearing a bralette and a brief underwear holds a cello bow while tilting their head to the right and slightly bending their knees. The stage has a light color floor and a dark backdrop.
Performance still from FCPA-supported In this Dream that Dogs Me, 2005. Photo by Tom Brazil.
A black and white photograph of two performers in front of a long and curved aluminum duct hung from above. The first performer wearing a bralette and a brief underwear holds a cello bow above their head while extending their right leg straight behind the body. Behind them, the second performer wearing a pair of pants plucks the strings of a cello while looking down at the music stand. The stage has a light color floor and a dark backdrop.
Performance still from FCPA-supported In this Dream that Dogs Me, 2005. Photo by Tom Brazil.
A black and white photograph of two performers in front of a long and curved aluminum duct hung from above. The performer on the left wearing a pair of pants plays the cello with a bow while looking down at the music stand. The performer on the right wearing a bralette and a brief underwear attempts to pull the cello bow out of the other performer's hand. The stage has a light color floor and a dark backdrop.
Performance still from FCPA-supported In this Dream that Dogs Me, 2005. Photo by Tom Brazil.
A black and white photograph of two performers in front of a long and curved aluminum duct hung from above. The performer on the right wearing a bralette and a brief underwear sits on the floor while raising their right leg straight up. They lean their body to their right with a supporting right arm. The performer on the left wearing rompers holds the other performer's raised leg while looking at them in a half squat position. The stage has a light color floor and a dark backdrop.
Performance still from FCPA-supported In this Dream that Dogs Me, 2005. Photo by Tom Brazil.
A black and white photograph of two performers in front of a long and curved aluminum duct hung from above. The first performer grabs the other performer's waist with their left hand from behind. The other performer wearing a bralette and a brief underwear embraces the neck of the first performer with their feet in the air and their eyes closed. Their head leans back onto the first performer's shoulders. The stage has a light color floor and a dark backdrop.
Performance still from FCPA-supported In this Dream that Dogs Me, 2005. Photo by Tom Brazil.
Excerpt from FCPA-supported In this Dream that Dogs Me, 2005.
Two performers are dressed in khaki colored rompers with their right hands held together. The performer on the left is in a half kneeling position facing the other performer on the right. The other performer bends and raises their right leg while pointing their left elbow to the front. The stage has a dark wooden floor and backdrop.
Performance still from Time is the Echo, 2004, produced during FCPA grant period. Photo by Amitava Sarkar.
A black and white photograph of two pairs of performers dancing in front of a rain curtain. The first pair in the front has their backs facing the camera. One of them raises their right leg straight up while the other one holds their arms. The second pair in the back faces directly to the camera. One of them slightly raises their right leg while the other one holds their hands. The stage is set against a dark backdrop.
Performance still from Time is the Echo, 2004, produced during FCPA grant period. Photo by Tom Brazil.