by Leigh Witchel
While the rest of us were baking, Karole Armitage was choreographing. Her “A Pandemic Notebook” was very much a notebook, a journal in short sketches of what she did during the Quarantime.
The biggest buzz was for “Time/Times,” two solos and a duet using gorgeous background photography from an upcoming film by Armitage. The draw was that it featured a return to the stage of former New York City Ballet principal Jock Soto, dancing with her. It was set to Bach’s famous chaconne; its familiarity, like Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel,” boosted the degree of difficulty of making this duet worthy of yet another dance to this score into the stratosphere.
Jock’s Bach solo began with a hand dance. He retired in 2005, and can still hold a stage, but he’s no longer in fighting form. Armitage was cagey about what she gave him to do; largely walks, poses and hand gestures. Soto’s outfit, a restrained silhouette all in black, was flattering. His presentation felt a bit like Tom Jones in a lower budget version Art of Noise video for “Kiss.”
After he walked out, Armitage walked in, also in black, masked, with her white hair in a small topknot. She still had a flexible body, but she is in her high sixties. To expect her to have the muscular strength to hold extensions isn’t realistic. And the solo was about the march of time. She whipped about a ripped bit of a black garbage bag that looked like a reticule, as she slapped it in the air or wore it like another mask.
Soto returned; she threw away her plastic. They danced in front of a landscape of snowy mountains. He gently but firmly moved her from side to side; that was the real reminder of what Soto was celebrated for – his expert partnering. As the two faced to the back, the dance finished without much of an ending. Throughout the evening things seemed to run out rather than finish; the show was indeed like a sketchbook.
The opener, “Beautiful Monsters,” inspired by Luchino Visconti’s film “La Strega Bruciata Viva,” (The Witch Burned Alive) was more typical of the evening: a small composition featuring three dancers Armitage has now worked with for a few years. Alonso Guzman and Sierra French were dressed in identical costumes: slim dresses, heeled shoes and sequined caps that covered the head like a thimble. They posed, touching their faces as if checking their makeup. It was blithely provocative that Armitage was toying with gender without trumpeting that she was.
Time slowed down as Guzman and French walked, torqued and stopped as Michael Gordon’s music pulsed. The deliberate pace acquired a sinister undertone, why did they have all the time in the world – to do what? Even with the unisex costuming, some roles started to shake out. Guzman usually bore French’s weight. A third dancer, Cristian Laverde-König, joined them wearing a short jacket adorned with stereo speakers. He was wearing a surgical mask; they weren’t.
As French and Guzman pointed and stretched, König partnered them alternately, stretching them into an attitude that collapsed. He disrobed French, first taking off her cap. She stripped to a bra and waist cincher, and changed to a fake leopard coat and sunglasses. She posed, looking like an Italian movie star from the 1960s, the trio ended just like that.
Photos of the trio taken in an empty warehouse were projected. The multimedia was excellent, and a sign that the most striking aspect of the evening was going to involve film and recording.
The most interesting works were recorded rather than live. “Killer,” made last year as part of the film series “Under the Dancer,” was brief and sparkled with the resourcefulness of making something deeply cinematic with a phone camera laid on the floor.
The dancers, wearing what looked like black rabbit masks with raggedy ears, stared downwards as if gazing into a rabbit hole. They jumped or hung their feet over the camera, creating unique shooting angles that made you spend much of your time wondering how it was done.
The other short works for Armitage’s dancers had clever moments, but were again sketches. “Head to Heel” was another duet for Guzman and French, this time in dancewear appliqued with soft sculpture: like innards on the front and organs – kidneys or lungs – on the back.
Armitage mentioned her fascination with a book on the medieval concept of the body and its workings, but that was clear even without her note. “Head to Heel” bore a kinship to Balanchine’s “The Four Temperaments” in a nod towards outmoded but poetic science. It was as if the pandemic’s obsession with health and in the limited information and disinformation early on reminded Armitage of useless remedies: bloodletting or urine-casting. Guzman and French danced like cats: focused and determined, but they knew what they were doing and we didn’t.
“6 Ft. Apart” took some of Armitage’s film experiments and brought them back to live performance. Guzman came out in a T-shirt and cap that had a video monitor and camera attached to it; a project Armitage developed at MIT with Agnes Fury Cameron. That felt explored less than the conceit of the title. Every time French and König got too close Guzman would initiate a horrible ruckus of sound effects. It was an irritated but socially distanced duet.
The evening got unlucky: the projector broke before a few filmed sections could be seen. I was able to see the films later, provided by the company. “Andy” like “Killer,” explored the unique floor-level vantage point and the others were tantalizing historical moments: Armitage downtown, or onstage at the Palais Garnier with Michael Clark.
It was already planned that the show would include how “Andy” was made, as its filming was recreated on stage. Similar to “Killer,” it used a phone camera and a more technical selfie stick to create its unique perspectives. Armitage again was playing with genderless work. French and König each wore one pointe shoe and both used their long hair unbound and flopped forward to create a similar effect for the camera.
The silver lining to the technical foulup was that Armitage spoke to cover, and the stories she told of the footage from 40 years ago, dancing in a building squat, her partner performing in another duet with blood pouring out his forehead (and everyone mistaking it as fake when it was real; he had hit a wall in the wings) was a grand consolation prize.
The brief, upbeat closer was “Mark Jacobs,” named after the costumer, with the dancers outfitted in pieces from his Fall ‘21 collection. Armitage’s inspiration was the music of Native American Jim Pepper, and her approach to it – creating a spirited line dance – recalled a more pop-oriented work she had done at BAM in 2009, “Itutu.”
The sketchbook quality of the evening was in some ways frustrating; most pieces felt as if they ended before they began. None of them felt like they fully treated the concept; we really were looking at pages from a notebook as much as a performance. But Armitage’s calling card has been her keen intelligence; she hasn’t ever been one to prioritize delivering a glossy product.
The company announced that this was her last year of producing new work before transitioning to a new, unstated mission. Given that the best ideas and most unique pieces were recorded, here’s hoping that film is part of it.
copyright © 2022 by Leigh Witchel
“A Pandemic Notebook” – Armitage Gone! Dance
New York Live Arts, New York, NY
March 19, 2022
Cover: Rebecca Walden and Cristian Laverde-König in “Killer.” Photo credit © Steven Pisano.
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