Summerstage Dance Presents ARMITAGE GONE!, 7/15-16

City Parks Foundation proudly brings the SummerStagedance program to Central Park on July 15-16. During these two days,SummerStagewill premiere a special commissioned work by celebrated dance company, Armitage Gone! Dance for a special FREE two-day performance. Opening for Armitage Gone! Dance will be up and coming choreographer, Darrell Grand Moultrie's new dance company, Dance Grand Moultrie.

Join SummerStage for the world premiere of "UnEasy," a special commissioned work featuring the innovative Armitage Gone! Dance company with an original composition written and performed by Grammy-nominated jazz pianist, Vijay Iyer.

UnEasy merges the worlds of dance and music as eight dancers weave and circulate among four musicians - a drummer, guitarist, cellist, and keyboardist. This edgy work unites Karole Armitage's dramatic choreography featuring rogue ballet, modern dance and street styling - a merging of ritualistic grounded movement with electric jolts - performed with Vijay Iyer's distinctive compositions inspired by Thelonious Monk, Jimi Hendrix, GyörgyLigeti, and basic kinematics. The dance suggests uneasy solitude, uneasy relationships, and uneasy group dynamics as befitting a world of cultural change with a murky future.

The program will include Armitage Gone! Dance performing "Quantum" from its acclaimed ballet, "Three Theories" to a score by Rhys Chatham for 100 electric guitars and drums.

Artist Website:http://www.armitagegonedance.org

Celebrated director and choreographer Karole Armitage, dubbed the "punk ballerina," launched Armitage Gone! Dance in 2005 and dedicated the company to redefining the boundaries and perceptions of contemporary dance. By building on classical and modern idioms from the Balanchine to the Cunningham tradition, Armitage infuses experimental thinking into the geometric balance, speed, rhythm and beauty of dance steps. She derives inspiration from sources such as physics, Japanese aesthetics, fashion, pop culture and new media, and from her dancer's diverse cultural and dance backgrounds.

Artist Website:http://www.vijay-iyer.com

Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer was described by Pitchforkas "one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today." Named the Jazz Journalists Association Musician of the Year, Iyer creates compelling, rhythmically charged music of astonishing breadth, as on his albums Tirtha, Solo, and the multiple-award-winning Historicity. "Extravagantly gifted" claimed The New Yorker.

Artist Website:http://www.darrellgrandmoultrie.com

Heralded as "obviously someone to watch" by The New York Times, Darrell Grand Moultrie is fast becoming one of America's most sought after choreographers having worked with such esteemed institutions as the Milwaukee Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Ailey 2, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Cincinnati Ballet, and the Colorado Ballet.

For Moultrie's SummerStage debut, Dance Grand Moultrie will offer three world premieres, alongside the NYC premiere of "Regality," as performed by Pittsburgh's August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble.

For the most up-to-date scheduling and full line-up for all SummerStage programming, visit: http://www.SummerStage.org

City Parks Foundation (CPF) is the only independent, nonprofit organization to offer park programs throughout the five boroughs of New York City. We work in over 750 parks citywide, presenting a broad range of free arts, sports, and education programs, and empowering citizens to support their parks on a local level. Our programs and community building initiatives reach more than 600,000 people each year, contributing to the revitalization of neighborhoods throughout New York City.