Quantum Leaps

“Science, for me, simply gives a sense of wonder and awe. For me, it’s an esthetic experience, and I understand it in that kind of way. It opens my eyes, and makes me see things with even more joy and wonder,” says [Karole Armitage], whose ever-inquiring mind and sophisticated, intricate choreography make her a natural for a project that is presented by the World Science Festival.

Her new dance, Three Theories, is inspired by Brian Greene’s best-selling book The Elegant Universe. In it, the Cornell and Columbia physicist explores the inherent conflict between the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and illuminates String Theory—concepts that might intimidate some, but fascinated Armitage and ignited her choreographic imagination. The hour-long piece, performed by her company of 12 explosively elegant, ready-for-anything dancers, opens with a prelude, “The Big Bang,” and continues with contrasting sections inspired by Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and String Theory.

The origins of this piece go back at least four years, and she engaged in extensive dialogue with Greene—conversations, phone calls, emails—prior to actually starting to work in the studio last fall. “It’s been a four-year thought process, which is what I think allowed me to distill the piece down into very essential ideas,” Armitage says. “It’s not even remotely trying to illustrate anything. It’s just using very real concrete information from each theory that will lead to a kind of movement vocabulary.

“I went down many paths. You can approach it in so many ways. It took a long time to decide that the best thing to do was this most essential pure-dance version. At times, I thought I should give the audience more specific content—maybe we even need a narrator. I went through many different ideas. But I’m very happy that I ultimately settled on the fact that dance is about time and space, as is physics. I made up my mind to just cut to the basics, just pure dance and music.”

Her musical choices offer considerable contrast, yet are connected by the fact that they all feature stringed instruments. “Relativity,” in which a series of duets evoke both calm and the potential for disruption, is set to a score by Sangeeta Shankar, who composes within the tradition of South Indian Carnatic music, for violin and tablas. “I stumbled on this by chance, and for me, it captured that feeling of twisting, of serenity but of forces at work,” Armitage says.

For the extended section inspired by Quantum Mechanics, Armitage has reunited with Rhys Chatham, whose violently loud, richly textured music was the score for her now-legendary Drastic-Classicism in 1981. Last year, she revived that work and several others from her breakthrough years for a memorable program at The Kitchen. “I reconnected with Rhys Chatham, and I thought, Great, let’s have him make a piece for the Quantum section. It’s 100 electric guitars, and drums, and it just has such power.” She chose a two-piano score by Alaskan composer John Luther Adams for the final section. “His music is so amorphous, it comes in waves and clouds, and it’s just not structured like conventional music at all. So it really works for that feeling of the string theory—subsuming and re-emerging, order and disorder, going back and forth between each other.”

“The elegant universe” could describe several of Armitage’s recent works, in which she honors, challenges and defies the formalism and precision of classical ballet, which is where she began before moving on to become a celebrated member of Merce Cunningham’s company. What interests her now, she says, is “exploring the contemporary ideas of classical structure.” At a recent runthrough of Three Theories, elegance and the potential for chaos co-existed. Some women wore toe shoes, but the ferocity and daring of the partnering were anything but polite. As a group, her fearless dancers are notably stunning and thrilling to watch.

Whatever degree of familiarity with physics, or Greene’s book, the audience brings to Three Theories is not significant, Armitage emphasizes. Speaking of the ideas that were the dance’s springboard, she says, “It’s so beyond the rational, that it’s all just a big act of imagination. So everyone is making up their own image of how this—particularly Quantum—looks. So to actually make them into a physical reality is a huge act of imagination. Whether it’s a physicist or a choreographer.”

[Three Theories]

June 3 through 6, Theater at [Cedar Lake], 547 W. 26th St. (betw. 10th & 11th Aves.), 212-352-3101; $30.