A Pandemic Notebook

Punk Ballerina Karole Armitage presents A Pandemic Notebook, a collection of world premieres with her company Armitage Gone! Dance. An intimate look at Armitage’s creative, cinematically driven explorations over the past 18 months, A Pandemic Notebook is the company’s final season presenting new work by Armitage before it transitions to a new mission – with Armitage herself taking the stage with NYCB legend Jock Soto.

The opening diptych, Beautiful Monster and Louis, was inspired by Italian art cinema and Trump’s presidency, revealing how celebrity and fashion can distract from the manipulation of power.

The second section of the program illuminates connections between film and live dance for the stage. Two world premieres, adapted from works originally created for the screen, are juxtaposed with two selections from Armitage’s screen series, Under the Dancer, which captures the body from extraordinary angles and perspectives, often with surreal distortions.

In Time/Times, an homage to slow cinema, Armitage performs for the first time since 1989, dancing with former New York City Ballet Principal Jock Soto in his first NYC appearance since 2005. They’ll present live excerpts from the film, framed by on-location stills from the remote wilderness.

A real-time experiment, 6 Ft. Apart rigs the dancers with visible wires and devices – iPhones and accelerometers, a type of on-body sensor – that trigger sound in relation to motion.

The program closes with Marc Jacobs, with the dancers in fantastical outfits from the eponymous designer’s Fall’21 collection. Set to Native American saxophonist and composer Jim Pepper’s Goin’ Down to Muskogee, it is a celebration of bouncing back and Armitage’s long-standing connections to the fashion world.

Run time: 75 minutes, no intermission

Armitage Gone! Dance @New York Live Arts March 16-19, 2022.mov from Armitage Gone! Dance on Vimeo.