Japan Society Presents Karole Armitage's YOU TOOK A PART OF ME

Japan Society presents You Took a Part of Me, a dance production with choreography by "punk ballerina" Karole Armitage, performed by her company Armitage Gone! Dance. You Took a Part of Me arrives at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street) for two performances only: Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13 at 7:30pm.

You Took a Part of Me is inspired by the 15th-century noh play Nonomiya, in which the ghost of one of Prince Genji's jealous lovers from The Tale of Genji returns to the world of the living. It explores erotic entanglement, unresolved attachments and the search for harmony, all of which are hallmarks of mugen noh, or a play that features a ghost or spirit. The lead role, performed by Armitage's longtime collaborator, Megumi Eda, highlights sinuous, seductive movement executed with ferocious intensity in a dream-like state. The show is set to live music, composed by Reiko Yamada and performed by Yuki Isami. Presented by and at Japan Society, this event is part of Carnegie Hall's Migrations: The Making of America festival.

You Took a Part of Me is performed by three dancers, playing the roles of the Ghost, her Double and her Lover. The production also includes a transformer, known as a koken in noh, and a musician. Throughout the piece, the musician Yuki Isami plays the flute, alto flute, nutshell percussion electronics, and traditional Japanese instruments such as the shinobue and shamisen. Using various dance vocabularies that adhere to the austerity and minimalism of noh, the three dancers conjure up an important memory from the Ghost's past. With subtlety and restraint, the Ghost remembers attraction, desire and obsession. Her romantic history, with its tangled complications, and muddied expectations and outcomes, leaves behind waves of questions and doubts. This history points to one of the Buddhist concepts that lies at the heart of noh: that forming attachments to changeable things, virtually invites suffering into one's life. Grudges and resentments are ultimately cast aside as the Ghost finds a path to peace. The love story is evoked through languid movements that reflect the curvilinear paths of classical Japanese calligraphy. The dance gradually becomes thorny and ugly, as limbs are locked into contorted twists and knots. In a puppet-like sequence, every gesture is initiated and controlled without physical contact. Though it all feels like a dream, the rhythm accelerates and the haunting ceases, concluding in a harmony that is true to noh form.

The performance area consists of three locations - two of which are in the midst of the theater's audience seating. The first is the mirror room, or kagami-no-ma, where traditionally noh performers look into a mirror, put on their mask and, through intense concentration, transform into the character they're portraying. This room is never seen by noh audiences, however in this production, it will be used as a place of visible transformation. Connecting the mirror room to the stage is the hashigakari, or bridge, that also extends out into the auditorium. Most of the action takes place on a wooden stage rising a few inches above the larger proscenium stage, emphasizing the dreamlike quality of mugen noh.

You Took a Part of Me is choreographed by Karole Armitage with advisement by Melissa McCormick, a Harvard professor of Japanese culture. Dancers include Megumi Eda, Sierra French, Cristian Laverde-Koenig and Alonso Guzman, as the koken. Music is composed by Reiko Yamada and performed by Yuki Isami. Lighting Design is by Clifton Taylor. Costume Design is by Peter Speliopolous. Hair design is by Danilo. Sound Engineer is Seth Torres.

Karole Armitage is the Artistic Director of the New York-based dance company Armitage Gone! Dance. She was rigorously trained in classical ballet and began her professional career as a member of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Switzerland (1973-1975), a company devoted exclusively to the repertory of George Balanchine who was director of the company at that time. In 1976, she was invited to join Merce Cunningham's company, where she remained for five years (1975-1981) performing leading roles in Cunningham's landmark works. Through her unique and acute knowledge of the aesthetic values of Balanchine and Cunningham, Armitage has created her own "voice" in the dichotomy of classical and modern dance, and is seen by some critics as the true choreographic heir to the two masters of 20th-century American dance. In 2016, Armitage was honored with a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University and a Simons Fellowship at The University of Kansas to study Native American Plains Culture with a focus on Pawnee, Kanza and Osage tribes. In 2017, she began a multiyear Fellowship as an MIT Media Lab Directors Fellow.

Megumi Eda was born in Nagano, Japan. Leaving Japan at 16, she was invited to join the Hamburg Ballet School. For the next 15 years as a member of the Hamburg Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet and the Rambert Dance Company she worked with several choreographers including John Neumeier, Christopher Bruce, Jiri Kylian, Lindsey Kemp, William Forsythe, Hans van Manen and David Dawson. In 2004, she moved to New York as a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance and has continued a close collaboration with Karole Armitage to this day. In addition to her work with Armitage, she has begun to incorporate other art forms including sculpture and video into her own installations and performances. She has been collaborating with Yoshiko Chuma since 2014 as a performer and filmmaker. She won a Bessie Award in 2004 for Time is the echo of an axe within a wood, choreographed by Armitage.

Japan Society's Performing Arts Program

As announced, Japan Society's 2018-2019 Performing Arts Season features works by visionary artists in dance, music and theater. The current season commenced in September with the traditional concert Hauta Shamisen: Love Songs from the Edo Period by shamisen master Hidetaro Honjoh (September 14); and continued with the contemporary music concert Hidejiro x ICE: Shamisen Evolution, in which young shamisen standout Hidejiro Honjoh performed three world premiere pieces by Vijar Iyer, Nathan Davis, Yu Kuwabara and more (October 5); and the contemporary music and flower arranging event Unusual Pairings: Akiko Yano + Seiho, featuring renowned pianist and singer/songwriter Akiko Yano and electronic sound artist and ikebana enthusiast Seiho (November 10); and the Contemporary Dance Festival: Japan + East Asia, including Akira Kasai's Pollen Revolution performed by Mitsutake Kasai, Kuan-Hsiang Liu's Kids and Goblin Party's Silver Knife, brought groundbreaking artists from Japan, Taiwan and Korea to New York (January 4 & 5). The season continued with an installment from the Play Reading Series: Contemporary Japanese Plays in English Translation, this year delivering 100 Years Stray by SaringROCK, translated by Aya Ogawa (February 4); and the traditional puppet theater presentation Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo Puppet Theater led by master and director Koryu Nishikawa V featuring fantastic female characters from classical literature, and a new work from Nishikawa based on a story from The Tale of Genji (February 28 - March 2). The season also features Japanese choreographer/dancer and founder of the internationally known dance company Leni-Basso, Akiko Kitamura, returning to the Society's stage with a multimedia dance piece about Cambodia's past entitled Cross Transit (March 22-23). Following this presentation of Karole Armitage's You Took a Part of Me, the season concludes the contemporary theater presentation Ashita no Ma-Joe: Rocky Macbeth by Yu Marai (May 15 - 19).

Since the inception of the Performing Arts Program in 1953, Japan Society has presented nearly 700 productions of Japan's finest performing arts to an extensive American audience. Programs range from the traditional arts of noh, kyogen, bunraku and kabuki to cutting-Edge Theater, dance and music. The Program also commissions new works to non-Japanese artists, produces national tours, organizes residency programs for American and Japanese artists and develops and distributes educational programs. The Performing Arts' season line-up is programmed by the Society's Artistic Director Yoko Shioya, who is the recipient of the 2019 Bessies Presenter Award for Outstanding Curating.

Founded in 1907, Japan Society in New York City presents sophisticated, topical and accessible experiences of Japanese art and culture, and facilitates the exchange of ideas, knowledge and innovation between the U.S. and Japan. More than 200 events annually encompass world-class exhibitions, dynamic classical and groundbreaking contemporary performing arts, film premieres and retrospectives, workshops and demonstrations, tastings, family activities, language classes, and a range of high-profile talks and expert panels that present open, critical dialogue on issues of vital importance to the U.S., Japan and East Asia.

Tickets & Information:

Performances are Friday, April 12 at 7:30pm* and Saturday, April 13 at 7:30pm†.

Tickets are $30 / $25 Japan Society members.

* followed by a MetLife Meet-the-Artists Reception

† followed by an artist Q&A

Tickets can be purchased by calling the Box Office at 212-715-1258 or in person at Japan Society (M-F 11:00am - 6:00pm and Sat-Sun 11:00am - 5:00pm). Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street, between First and Second Avenues (accessible by the 4/5/6 at 42nd Street-Grand Central Station or the E at Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street). For more information, call 212-832-1155 or visit http://www.japansociety.org

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