At-home exercises from ‘punk ballerina’ Karole Armitage

To mark International Day of Yoga 2023, we revisit our at-home stretch routine with Karole Armitage, maven of the New York dance scene

Karole Armitage at-home exercises illustrated by faceless girl with straight black hair
(Image credit: Illustrations by Lucie Birant)

Karole Armitage’s signature choreography style – simultaneously classical and riotous, cerebral and modish – established her place as the ‘punk ballerina’ of the dance world. In the 1980s, she electrified the downtown New York scene with classical dances performed in spiked heels, and ballet poses intermixed with voguing. Now, Armitage runs her own company, Armitage Gone!, and has collaborated with artists such as David Salle and Jeff Koons, as well as designers Jean-Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs, whose spring 2020 show was a joyful riot of Armitage movements.

The downtown dance maven created this sweet and simple guide to staying in shape at home, especially for Wallpaper* readers. 

Dancer Karole Armitage’s at-home exercises

HEAD

Pale grey background, a faceless girl with long straight black hair with a fringe, red top, looking down

(Image credit: Illustration by Lucie Birant)
  1. Gently tuck your chin into your check and let it hang. Take a few deep breaths. You should feel a stretch going down your neck an even into your spine. 

  2. Bring your head up again and lean your head, first right and then left, each time breathing deeply for a few breaths. Now make a slow circle by dropping you head to your chest. Circle your head in a clockwise motion. Make sure you see the ceiling!

  3. Reverse it and repeat with at least four circles total. 

SHOULDERS

Pale grey background, side view of a faceless girl with long straight black hair with a fringe, red long sleeve top, looking straight ahead, arms by her side

(Image credit: Illustration by Lucie Birant)
  1. Let your arms hang with no tensing of muscles. Push your shoulders forward, then thrust them backwards. Inhale as you go forward and exhale as you go back. Do this at least four times.

  2. Now circle your shoulders so that they go almost as high as your ears. With an inhalation and an exhalation, circle forward up back and centere. Then reverse. Do this at least four times. 

ARMS

Pale grey background, a faceless girl with straight black hair with a fringe, red long sleeve top, arms raised in the air, palms open

(Image credit: Illustration by Lucie Birant)
  1. Circle your arms in a path that goes straight out from your shoulder, up to the ceiling, and back behind you to return down. Do this forward then backwards four times fairly slow, and then speed up another four times. 

SPINE

Pale grey background, side view of a girl with straight black hair falling forward, bending over to touch her bare feet, black leggings, red long sleeve leotard

(Image credit: Illustration by Lucie Birant)
  1. Imagine a point on the crown of your head. Take that point and let your chin drop forward just as you did in the head exercise, but this time keep going downward, feeling the stretch vertebrae by vertebrae as you go lower and lower until you touch the floor.

  2. Roll up just like you came down: vertebrae by vertebrae. Do this twice. Now imagine that you get punched in the stomach. 

  3. Standing nice and straight imagine a fist strikes the centre of your stomach just above the belly bottom. Exhale. That impact should allow you to make a big circle in your back. Be sure to let your knees bend when you get punched.

  4. As you inhale straighten the circle in your back into a nice, straight, long spine. Repeat four times.

KNEES

Pale grey background, body and legs of a girl bending her knees, red leotard and black leggings, arms by her side

(Image credit: Illustration by Lucie Birant)
  1. Try to stand perfectly straight as you bend your knees as low as possible with your heels remaining on the floor. Don't tip forwards or backwards – just go straight up and down.

  2. Do this two times with your arms hanging down.

  3. Repeat twice with your arms out in front of you at shoulder height.

  4. Try two times with your arms above you reaching to ceiling.

  5. Finally do it two more times with your arms open to the side parallel to the floor. 

HEEL

Pale grey background, legs together, below knee, lay flat, wearing black leggings, bare feet pointing up

(Image credit: Illustration by Lucie Birant)
  1. Flex your feet, and then try to point them forward. 

  2. Do this five times slowly and then five times fast.
Writer and Wallpaper* Contributing Editor

Mary Cleary is a writer based in London and New York. Previously beauty & grooming editor at Wallpaper*, she is now a contributing editor, alongside writing for various publications on all aspects of culture.