POSTED BY: Lisa Kent
PILOBOLUS: A very smart phototropic fungus which seeks out light and can throw it’s spores anywhere from a couple of centimeters to an incredible distance of six feet, an amazing achievement for a fungus less than one centimeter tall.
OR
PILOBOLUS: An internationally known modern dance company which began at Dartmouth College by four men taking a dance class “on a lark” in the early ’70’s.
On Sunday, December 5, eleven 8th grade students and one graduate of GUS traveled into the Boston’s Cutler Majestic Theater to see a live performance of the latter.
The name, Pilobolus, with all that the word implies, fits the dance group perfectly! The founders’ initial consideration for a moniker, The Vermont National Dance Company, was just too boring…and Pilobolus is anything but boring!
Soon after Pilobus began performing, two women were added to the group. ‘Creative collaboration’ is how they describe their process of always making up dances as a group rather than having someone come and teach a piece to the company (the way most dance companies operate).
An excerpt from Pilobolos.com:
“The group was immediately acclaimed for its startling mix of humor and invention. Their work contains “feats of balance and timing and the merging of bodies into strange shape-shifting organisms.”
For Sunday’s performance, they featured one of their very early pieces, “Walklydon” (which spoofs people out walking and running), as well as several other dance and theater oriented pieces. Even the world of technology was evident in the program. One piece featured two robots created at MIT flying around the stage having been programmed to be integrated with the movements of the dancers.
Pilobolus is best known, however, for their incredible athleticism.
Excerpt from their featured profile on TED.com:
Their smooth, organic choreography — featuring unusual partnering and lifts — often blurs the lines between individual performers, creating a sense of dance-troupe-as-organism. Still evolving after 35 years, Pilobolus has built up a repertoire of more than 85 works and received numerous awards, including the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in choreography. Their hilarious appearance at the 2007 Oscars — where they built witty silhouettes to punctuate the ceremony — brought the troupe further into the public eye.”
“Your beliefs in the nature of strength, endurance and gravity will not hold. In fact, they will be defied. And every time you think, ‘Whoa, how did they do that?’ they will take it further.” – Dance Insider
GUS students and teachers alike were mesmerized by the sheer physicality of the dancers. “Awesome,” was how Maddie Tremblay and Natalie Hochbrunn described the performance.
Other comments by students who attended.
“The way they could move and lift each other was unreal.” (Isabel Tehan)
“I had no idea the things they did were humanly possible.” (Wallace Douglas)
“All their movements were so effortless and fluid. It’s just so breathtaking that words can’t describe it.” (Katya Van Anderlecht)
“The elegance of the dances motivated me to work more on my group dance. I see modern dance through new eyes after watching them flow across the stage.” (Jack Hay)
“Pilobolus was very inspiring. They had great music and great ideas. I would definitely see them again.” (Jason King)
“Pilobolus gave me a new understand of modern dance and inspired me to come up with new ideas and movements for our group dance.” (Parker Malarkey)
“The dancers were so strong everywhere. What do they do to stay in shape?” (Margot DesBois)
We had seen Pilobolus video tapes, but nothing can compare to the magic of a live performance. The energy and three-dimensionality comes across as something palpable when watching dance in the theater. I feel privileged that GUS students could be exposed to this amazing experience and hope this is just the beginning of many more trips to the theater for current GUS students and graduates alike.
Visit Pilobus website here
Donna Krohn
