Entertainment

Asian accents for Armitage

For a “punk ballerina,” Karole Armitage has some good, old-fashioned ideas. And the harder she pushes at them, the better they are.

The downtown diva looked sharp at Tuesday’s opening in an elegantly folded black dress by Issey Miyake, who also designed the origami-like costumes for “GAGA-Gaku,” her new work.

Inspired by ancient Japanese music, “GAGA-Gaku” takes the curling arms and downcast glances of Asian court dancing, mixes it with ballet and sets the result to a recording of Lois V Vierk’s twanging, clanging, guitar score.

Sandwiched between two large, neatly made group sections is a duet: Adorned with brass fingernail extensions, Megumi Eda curls around tall Jacob Michael Warren in slow motion.

A red curtain cuts off the back of the stage, and the dancers move under lights hung close to their heads. “GAGA-Gaku” looks its best when it’s crowded enough to burst, but Armitage doesn’t always follow through and lets the dancers stay comfortably apart.

“Drastic-Classicism,” also on the bill, is the 1981 mash-up of punk and ballet that made Armitage’s name. You can use the cotton wadding the ushers hand you to plug your ears, but Rhys Chatham’s score played by the live drummer and four guitarists isn’t louder than at any rock club.

Standing deadpan and strumming away, the guitarists make clouds of sound and feedback. The dancers — in black, of course — stalk in and move in slow, gooey tempos punctuated by outbursts of ballet.

There’s a nifty duet in which Marlon Taylor-Wiles hauls tiny Leonides D. Arpon over his head; later, they convulse as if undergoing electric-shock treatment.

Despite the seeming chaos, Armitage’s work is clean and structured. While “Drastic-Classicism” doesn’t have the shock value it had three decades ago, it’s still a very loud breath of fresh air.

The dancers weren’t around for the punk era, so they playact and sneer, but the musicians get it: They just do their thing and let the attitude take care of itself.