Armitage Gone! Dance
The Elegant Universe
As part of the Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process series, director/choreographer Karole Armitage presented a new work inspired by physicist Brian Greene's bestselling book, The Elegant Universe. This dynamic performance blended music, dance, text, and projected imagery to create a vibrant portrait of the universe as revealed by cutting-edge physics, incorporating wondrous insights from the realm of string theory.
The performances included a discussion between Armitage, Brian Greene and composer Lukas Ligeti about the rich and challenging process of transforming scientific concepts into aesthetic expression. Lukas Ligeti's score was performed live by the Composer with Marco Cappelli on guitar, and by Ha-Yang Kim on cello.
Karole Armitage is a dancer and choreographer widely known for combining disparate styles and themes with the discipline and techniques of classical ballet. Armitage danced with the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Switzerland, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, before forming her own New York-based company in the 1980s. She has created dances for numerous companies including American Ballet Theatre, Paris Opera Ballet the White Oak Dance Project, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Lyon Opera Ballet, the Washington Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Rambert Dance Company, and most recently, Bern Ballet and Kansas City Ballet.
Brian Greene is a Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University, and is recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in his field of superstring theory. His books are widely read: The Elegant Universe, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has sold more than a million copies worldwide; The Fabric of the Cosmos spent half a year on the New York Times bestseller list, and inspired the Washington Post to call him the “single best explainer of abstruse ideas in the world today.”
Lukas Ligeti is a composer whose works combine downtown New York experimentalism with contemporary classical music, jazz, electronica, and world music.This event produced in collaboration with
Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum
