Pilobolus tours eternally gaining followers along the way. Saturday’s packed concert at the State Theatre showed that this 44 year old brand can still amaze and amuse in live performance. The old formulas wear thin at times and there’s no guarantee that Pilobolus will always stay true to the original, golden recipe for success as it transforms itself from a six-person modern dance company to an international entity, a pop culture phenomenon with 2 touring companies and a presence in commercials and film. But three out of five dances worked for us on Saturday and that’s not bad.
Untitled 2015 was billed as a preview not a premier but, as Pam Young of DanceCleveland quietly explained in her curtain speech, it is “a brand new piece never before seen by anyone.” Young and DanceCleveland have been bringing these de facto premieres to Cleveland more and more frequently. Only one week earlier Camille A. Brown & Dancers performed their Black Girl: Linguistic Play, commissioned by DanceCleveland, as a “work-in-progress” at the IABD Founders Showcase. How does Young bring so many de facto premieres here? Call it astute management but we feel certain that it’s a super power.
Like many Pilobolus dances, Untitled is built around imaginative uses of a prop, in this case a free-standing doorway with lightning-like lighting, positioned center stage and mounted on a low dolly. Lighting Design by Russell Champa and Music and Sound Design by David Van Tieghem as well as the 5 dancers lend portent to each opening and closing of the door, each spin of the doorway on its dolly.
Is it a portal between times? Between worlds? That potent ambiguity remains unanswered. As in many of Pilobolus’ better dances, the unlikely lifts and carries of the Pilobolus-style partnering are not presented as stunts. Rather, something fascinating seems to be going on here even if we can’t quite say what.
Inconsistent Pedaler (2014) is built around the imaginative exploitation of a premise. It’s a birthday party for an ancient patriarch and minimalist props and costumes tell us that the family — mother, father, and giant diaper-wearing baby — are helping him celebrate. Strangely, all the action is powered by a figure on a stationary bicycle. When she pedals, the action speeds up, but when she gets off the bike to facilitate the action, everything slows to a halt until she resumes pedaling. So we have rising and falling action, crescendo, decrescendo, repeat. The Pilobolus dancers are not particularly good mimes but they can lift and carry each other in a lot more interesting ways than most mimes and they have a wonderful sense of humor.
Sweet Purgatory (1991) was without props or a special premise but the new dancers worked just fine in the old choreography. Watching this concert, we were reminded again and again that the 6 original Pilobolus members included 4 really, really strong guys — jocks and a farm boy — new to modern dance. They and their successors at the State Theater on Saturday were not about showing precise footwork or beautiful lines; their focus was, instead, quality of movement in Pilobolus-style partnering.
Sweet Purgatory began with the dancers entering as individuals and moving with a floating quality. Then, with much repetition of lifts and much unison movement, it was floating lifts in 2 trios of 2 men and one woman. Then couples with one partner holding the other aloft. Then one partner catching and casting the other partner down. Then different groupings and different qualities of movement. Call it a very engaging 22 minute study of quality of movement in partnering set to Dimitri Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, Opus 110a, orchestral arrangement by Rudolph Barshai.
The 2 dances that didn’t work so well for us were On the Nature of Things (2014) and All Is Not Lost (2011).
On the Nature of Things presented 2 men and a woman dancing on a small table. We did not feel that important meanings were about to be revealed. The persistent slow motion produced a soporific effect. The prop and the premise grew tiresome long before the 16 minute dance was over.
All Is Not Lost involved a considerably larger table, this one with a transparent glass top and a video camera mounted under it. Dressed in white unitards, the 6 dancers climbed onto the table and variously mugged for the camera. We saw their faces, their butts, and the bottoms of their feet. The dancers’ high spirits and good humor notwithstanding, 5 minutes of this was plenty. Considering that the table took nearly 5 minutes to put up and take down, we’d describe this as one prop that didn’t work out …at least not for us.
Before each dance a small screen came down and we were shown a 4 minute film. Of these films, Wind, an animation, directed by Robert Löbel and Cirrus edited by Cyriak were particularly imaginative and entertaining.
Pilobolus was presented by DanceCleveland at the State Theatre on Saturday, January 31, 2015 with support from Eaton, FirstMerit Foundation, and Cuyahoga Community College.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.