Choreographers 2018

Karole Armitage (USA)

Karole Armitage is the Artistic Director of the New York-based Armitage Gone! Dance Company. Known as the “punk ballerina,” Armitage is renowned for pushing the boundaries to create contemporary works that blend dance, music and art. In her hands, the classic vocabulary is given a needed shock to its system, with speed, fractured lines, abstractions and symmetry countermanded by asymmetry. Through her acute knowledge of the aesthetic values of Balanchine and Cunningham, with whom she danced professionally, Armitage has created her own “voice” in the dichotomy dance. Her work is at once both esoteric and popular, having choreographed for Broadway, Cirque du Soleil, Madonna and Michael Jackson, Merchant-Ivory film and dance companies across the globe ranging from the Paris Opera Ballet to the Tasmanian Dance Company and the Bolshoi. She directs opera for important European houses and is currently an MIT Media Lab Directors Fellow bringing poetic, emerging technology to the stage. The work she creates is characterised by neo-classicism, undulating partnering work and technical grace and precision.

 

Marina Collard (UK)

Marina is a choreographer and performer interested in collaborating with artists from different disciplines. She has worked with filmmaker Tom Paine making works for theatre and gallery settings. Still Going was shown at the British Council Theatre in Delhi alongside her work as a mentor for Gati Dance Choreographic Residency in 2015 and 2016. She has an on-going creative partnership with composer Paul Newland, and is currently collaborating with Henrietta Hale on the making of Clean Dream – Dream Clean. Marina has worked with ceramicist Claire Twomey, Florence Peake, Dog Kennel Hill Project, Carol Brown Dances, CandoCo Dance Company, Joe Moran among others. Audiences can expect rigorous crafting of abstract and pure dance work, resonating with deeply human qualities and a poetic, atmospheric tenor.

 

Hetain Patel (UK)

Hetain Patel is a London based visual artist and performance maker. His live performances, films, sculptures, and photographs have been shown worldwide from the Venice Biennale, Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing and Tate Modern, London to Sadler’s Wells, where he is a New Wave Associate. Patel made his first dance company work for Candoco in 2014, which continues to tour internationally. His work exploring identity and freedom, using humour, choreography and text appears in multiple formats and media, intended to reach the widest possible audience. His video and performance work online have been watched over 25 million times, which includes his TED talk of 2013 titled, Who Am I? Think Again. Watch and delight in the individual performers’ quirks, pathos and mischief of Patel’s wry and indelibly human tapestry.