KAROLE ARMITAGE (Artistic Director) began her professional career in 1973 as a member of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Switzerland, a company rooted in the Balanchine aesthetic and devoted exclusively to his repertory. There she performed many Balanchine masterworks including Agon, The Four Temperaments and Serenade.  From 1976–1981 she was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company where she danced in leading roles across the globe.  Armitage created her first piece, Ne, in 1978, followed by Drastic-Classicism in 1981. Throughout the 80s she led her own New York-based dance company and incorporated the Armitage Ballet in 1985. In 1984, after a performance of her Watteau Duets at Dance Theater Workshop, Mikhail Baryshnikov invited her to create a work for American Ballet Theatre. In 1987, Rudolph Nureyev asked her to create her fourth dance for the Paris Opera Ballet. Its success led to many European commissions. In 1990, Armitage chose to maintain her company on a project basis in order to pursue work with major European ballet and opera companies.  In 1990, Armitage was appointed Director of MaggioDanza in Florence, Italy, where from 1995 to 1998 she supervised 45 dancers in the classical repertoire and created her own work. From 1999 to 2002 she was the resident choreographer of the Ballet de Lorraine in France, which toured her work throughout Europe.

In 2004, she made a triumphant return to New York when the Joyce Theater invited her to create a new ballet. Armitage Gone! Dance was launched in 2005.  In the same year, she served as the Director of the Venice Biennale Festival of Contemporary Dance. In the spring of 2009, Armitage was awarded France’s most prestigious award, Commandeur dans L’ordre des Arts et des Lettres and was nominated for a Tony award for her choreography for the musical Hair on Broadway.

She has created dances for numerous companies including the Paris Opera Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Lyon Opera Ballet, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, the Washington Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Kansas City Ballet, the Bern Ballet and the Rambert Dance Company. She has directed operas from the baroque and contemporary repertoire for many of the prestigious houses of Europe including Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Lyric Opera in Athens and Het Muzik Theater in Amsterdam. She has choreographed for the camera for pop icons Madonna and Michael Jackson and the filmmakers Merchant and Ivory. Armitage’s choreography was first seen on Broadway in the musical Passing Strange, which opened in February 2008. This was followed by the critically acclaimed revival of the 1960’s musical Hair, which opened on Broadway in 2009 and led to a Tony nomination for choreography.

Over the years Armitage has collaborated with a distinguished array of artists including Thomas Adès, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Jeff Koons, Christian Lacroix, Lukas Ligeti, David Salle, Peter Speliopoulos, Philip Taaffe and Brice Marden. Her work has been the subject of two documentaries made for television: The South Bank Show (1985), directed by David Hinton and Wild Ballerina (1998), directed by Mark Kidel. In addition to creating work for her company, Armitage is creating ballets for The Kansas City Ballet, the Bern Ballet in Switzerland, Boston Ballet and Ballet de Lorraine in France. Armitage is the recipient of many honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship for Choreography (1986), the Grand Prix Roscigno Danza, Italy (2005).