Dancing to a different drummer

Armitage, 54, grew up in Lawrence, Kan. She studied ballet in Kansas City with Tomi Wortham, who had been in the New York City Ballet under George Balanchine, inventor of neo-classical ballet.

She moved on to the North Carolina School of the Arts and NYCB's School of American Ballet, then joined the Geneva Ballet, which had a Balanchine repertoire.

In 1977, the tall, long-limbed, charismatic and consummately skilled Armitage moved to New York and made a big impression with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

In 1979, she started making her own dances, shockers steeped in a punk sensibility new to concert dance. The 1981 "Drastic Classicism," to roaring electric guitars, made Armitage an avant-garde star and a controversial figure.

Arlene Croce, The New Yorker's great dance critic, wrote at the time: " 'Drastic Classicism' was every bit of that: classicism in hellish straits, handed over to the dark powers. Yet it transcended its own wildness to become a vindication of formal values in dancing."

Vanity Fair spotted her as a glamorous personage, and Armitage soon was directing music videos and keeping company with the likes of Madonna, star fashion designers and art star David Salle, with whom she had a long romantic relationship.

She choreographed a music video for Michael Jackson when he was at the top of the heap. Mikhail Baryshnikov, then director of the American Ballet Theater, came backstage after one of her shows and asked her to create something for the big company. Rudolf Nureyev gave her the same offer on behalf of the Paris Opera Ballet.

In the spotlight

Armitage's star rose even though she ran against the grain of both ballet and modern dance in those days. The austere post-modernists of the time wore drab costumes and chastely said no to both glamour and virtuosity. The ballet world was just poking a toe into crossover with modern dance and pop sensibility.

Armitage crashed through every barrier. In the same piece, she danced one segment in pointe shoes and another in sky-high stilettos.

She created her own Armitage Ballet and toured for a while but gave up the constant fund raising of an American company in 1989 for the subsidized houses of Europe. She was associate choreographer at the Ballet de Lorraine and artistic director of Maggio Danza, the big, opera-house ballet of Florence, Italy, for three years each, and she freelanced extensively. She also took up a parallel career as an opera director.

In 2005, Armitage returned to New York and established the company we'll see in Milwaukee. Since then, most of her energy has gone into Armitage Gone!, which is up and running about 30 weeks per year. But she still freelances in Europe; she responded to interview questions by phone from Naples, where she was directing Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice."

The obvious question was, with a secure career in Europe, why take on the headache of trying to run a company in America?

"There are limits to any system, and I learned the limits of the European system," she said. "Some European dancers work very hard, but there are some who don't. Those who don't drag you down to their level."

Pushing boundaries

American dancers have earned their widespread reputation as workaholics. Beyond that, Armitage wanted a company that she formed herself. In Europe, as a freelancer or director, she took on pre-established ensembles.

"I wanted my own dancers dedicated to my own vision," she said. "I wanted dancers with the drive to go those extra degrees, with what it takes to push the boundaries."

Armitage said she'd been working with essentially the same dancers for almost five years. All are extensively trained in ballet.

"They have to have a lot of technique," she said. "They need the refinement of classical ballet and the freedom of modern, hip-hop and who knows what. But without ballet, they can't do what I need them to do.

"They also have to be very creative with movement. They have to have a strong sense of themselves, they can't just be robots. And they need willpower and dedication."

Links to video excerpts of "Time is the echo of an axe within a wood" and "Ligeti Essays," the two substantial works on the Milwaukee program, can be found at www.armitagegonedance.org/. The videos reflect Armitage's evolution over the years. To oversimplify but still convey the overall trend: less drastic, more classical.

She largely gave up the rumble and shriek of punk rock years ago. Music of Béla Bartók, with dashes of Gavin Bryars, Annie Gosfield, Roger Kleier and Charles Ives accompany "Time is the echo." Fifteen art songs by Gyorgy Ligeti back the "Essays." The dances are abstract and highly technical, with very complex partnering and subtle relations with the music. They will make dance fans think of both Balanchine and Cunningham.