Carol/Karole

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Choreography: Karole Armitage

Costume design & realization: Zane Kealey, Grace Saathoff

Music: Carol Kaye, Sonny & Cher, Nancy Sinatra, Lalo Schifrin, Michael Barracato

Duration: 12:42 minutes, 5 dancers

Commissioned by Boston Dance Theater November 2022

 

My dance is an homage to Carol Kaye. I discovered her genius thanks to Jessie Stinnett who dreamed up Boston Dance Theater's Carol Kaye project. Carol possesses that rare artistic ability to combine the highest level of innovation and sophistication with something so natural and fundamental that it almost goes unnoticed. Her music attracts you like a magnet and so that you don't even know what is happening to you. It is, in the deepest sense, truly populist and accessible while operating at a rarified level. I sought to create a lively, fun, and serious work through four of her iconic songs. Carol/Karole addresses the cultural context of the worlds of motown, pop, tv series and movies while exploring a new dance vocabulary and diving deeply into the way dance relates to music. It is set in motion by a situation - a performance art like collage of amps, chairs, instruments, and bits of costume. Dance is a force of pleasure, a force of life and carries with it the nuances of culture. The way that dancers move, the way that a dancer's inner life is registered as they feel movement and hear the music, the way dancers relate to each other - these differences and subtilites create a world on stage that mirrors the world of the audience.  I hope the audience finds enjoyment in listening, looking and feeling. –Karole Armitage