Pilobolus Because...

I am interested in researching Pilobolus because of their unique approach to Concert Dance. When I watch their works I find a unique relationship between a Cirque du Soliel type of performance and a qualitative and Contemporary type of performance. The company has a broad range of performance techniques and avenues that I would like to explore with this research project. The company catches my attention because it is an avenue for "transforming the image of the dancer" (New York Times). In my opinion, there are so many elements to the formation of the world of dance, and to the development of a fully functional and able bodied dancer. I personally have a diverse background that includes acrobatics and flexibility training similar to the rudimentary aspects of Pilobolus' "Art and Athletics" (New York Times) style. I want to find out how Pilobolus fits into the world of Concert Dance. I am curious to explore the idea of Pilobolus' works being that of an art form as opposed to an ostentatious entertainment event. I enjoy discovering unique venues of Concert Dance and learning how they were formed and molded. Researching Pilobolus would be a wonderful opportunity for me to grow in my knowledge of dance and my career interests in the concert dance world.

See For Yourself

Though dance is a time art, there is something timeless about a beautiful video of well performed dance. Please take the time to watch a video of a Pilobolus work called "Megawatt".

-In this clip six highly skilled dancers take turns defying the normal human expectations of gravity. They experiment with weight sharing with one another as well as catch and release reflex techniques incorporating partner work. The costumes were multiple pieces of material fashioned around the dancers' bodies in different combinations and patterns. The dancers performed with an animalistic expression using their faces and arms to predominantly signal this affect to the choreography. The dancers wore protective gear, such as knee pads, because in addition to hurling themselves into their partners' arms they were thrusting themselves in and out of the floor. The dynamics shared by the dancers caused the piece to be alive through shared expression and abrupt movement qualities. These dancers approached this piece with easily recognizable conviction.

Opinions Of Higher Authority

Being such an influential company, Pilobolus is subject to academic inquiries, concert reviews, and more. Below are two examples of this type of analysis:

-Scholarly Article & Comparison

Dynamics of Pilobolus Dance Theater Viewed Through Laban Movement Analysis

Billie Lepczyk, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

The Pilobolus Dance Theatre established in 1971 was immediately acclaimed for its originality, wit, and freshness. The group introduced a new approach to choreography called collective creativity or choreography by consensus and a new weight sharing approach of group partnering. This involved gymnastics with a tangling of bodies, convoluted group shapes, and sculptures of linked and connected bodies that did not quite resemble human beings. Much has been written about the innovations of the physics of body weight sharing and leverages and the relationship of the dancers' bodies to each other in creating sculpture, respectively the body and space aspects of Laban Movement Analysis. However, the innovations of the effort aspect, the movement dynamics, have not been fully identified. Dance critic Arlene Croce (1978) came closest to it when she described the movement as smooth with a lack of “what dancers call dynamics.” Dynamics concern four motion factors: flow with dynamic qualities of bound and free effort; weight, strong and light; time, quick and sustained; and space, direct and flexible. The movement analysis focused on two early works, Ocellus and Ciona, presented in the Pilobolus Dance Theatre video produced by Dance in America in 1977. The research procedure entailed multiple viewings of the video. The findings indicate that the baseline of the movement style is a combination of the motion factors of flow and weight, called the dreamlike state in Laban theory. The predominance of these dynamics presents the smoothness that Croce attributes to the Pilobolus style. The flow is usually medium to bound intensity and the weight, medium to strong intensity. The time factor serves as a contrast moving from the even flow into sustained effort or a more infrequent contrast, quick effort as in the wavelike progressions in Ocellus. The space effort is not pronounced but is used as an unexpected contrast as in the burst of direct/sudden/strong effort in Ciona where the dancers free themselves from each other. In summary, the innovative features of Pilobolus' movement dynamics include the predominance of an evenness of effort qualities of the flow and weight factors with the absence of the space factor's significance and the limited use of effort contrasts, which contribute to creating images of creatures and nonhumans.

-Review

A 36-Year Conversation Between Art and Athletics

By ALASTAIR MACAULAY

Published: July 18, 2007

The New York Times

How many things can be made of a somersault! With Pilobolus Dance Theater, where acrobatics are liquefied into poetry, the somersault proves as basic as the upright stance and turnout of the legs are to ballet or as the opposition between contraction and release is to the Martha Graham style.

In “Pseudopodia” (from 1973) a solo male dancer (Jun Kuribayashi) comes spinning on in a long stream of backward somersaults, sometimes pausing for phenomenal feats of balance. “Gnomen” (1997) begins with big, rolling multiple somersaults that contain, we gradually see, two, no, three, no, four dancers — like parts of the same wheel.

These and many other permutations of the somersault throughout the repertory introduce us to a transformed image of the dancer. Most forms of dance involve some kind of rhythmic footwork (and the Pilobolus performers show in some works that they are perfectly capable of this), but most of the company’s works return to the age-old notion of dancers as tumblers, as acrobatic clowns. Often Pilobolus goes further back than that: Its performers look as much animal as human. Further yet: Much of its imagery is vegetable, flora rather than fauna. Sometimes we find we’re watching amoebas; changing organisms; explosions of seed heads.

I know of no dance company that so divides viewers. Since Pilobolus was new, in the 1970s, critics who sit on the same side of the fence regarding choreographers as controversial as Merce Cunningham, and Kenneth MacMillan have found themselves in civil war over Pilobolus. And that the troupe has been popular at the box office from the first has only loaded its detractors with a greater degree of scorn. Then there has been the claim that the original Pilobolus experiment had passed its sell-by date in the mid-1980s. Or the claim that all Pilobolus works are the same, and sophomoric to boot.

Well, here Pilobolus still is, in its 36th year. Its current season includes two works, “B’zyrk” and “Persistence of Memory,” both new to New York.

In “B’zyrk,” choreographed by Jonathan Wolken in collaboration with his performers, you can see why this company seems too obvious, too cute, for some tastes. But then this starts and ends by being a joke about the desperateness of clowning; in between, it takes us into the most seductive aspect of Pilobolus theater, the illogical dreamlike continuity of its imagery. Suddenly these clowns are caught up in a different kind of time, as if floating: We see them in a new dimension.

Dreaming is the stuff that “Persistence of Memory” is made of. Choreographed by Michael Tracy with his dancers, it begins with a woman (Annika Sheaff) running backward into the light around a sleeping man, and ends with the man (Manelich Minniefee) running backward out of that light around the now-sleeping woman.

What happens between — dreamlike in its defiance of narrative logic, lyrically acrobatic in many different ways, both relaxedly and intensely erotic — is a striking image of complex, two-way support between the sexes. She wears a knee-length summer dress, and at first she seems to belong to a world apart from this bare-chested man. But as the situation develops, she’s no-nonsense and practical in the way she at one point (standing upright on his back) peels the dress up her legs to prepare herself for the upended intimacies that are to come.

Later he’s upended too: one of the duet’s most eloquent passages is in the ways he hangs suspended down her back, his legs tucked over her shoulders, she calm and steady in carrying his full weight. It’s a sign of Pilobolus’s art that such moments count for more than the duet’s most startling acrobatic feats (as when the extended bodies of the man and the woman form an outstretched T, with only his arms and hands as support).

In “Megawatt” (2004, a Wolken composition), six dancers are constantly convulsed. The jolts that pass through their bodies often suggest electric-shock treatment, but the patterns they are sent into are formally geometric.

At its most remarkable, this begins to be an Orwellian horror drama — the group shakes and shudders through the same formations — but doesn’t take off as such. An element of grim ingratiation starts to become part of the horror but is never resolved. Even so, the piece’s sheer physical excitement is hard to resist.

When Pilobolus was young, it seemed the kind of passing miracle that would never survive the generation that created it. Many years have passed since I last watched the company, and certainly it has changed. (Musical phrasing seems more evident than before, while some of the stunning illusory effects of the first-generation performances have been diluted.)

Yet Pilobolus retains its identity more than many dance companies. The five works mentioned here were shown together on a special season-opening program on Monday: They will be distributed across the three programs that occupy the company’s four-week season at the Joyce, along with older works I am keen to see again, like “Walklyndon” and “Day Two.”

The continuity of changing imagery, the easy sensuousness and the wonderful push-me-pull-you surprises of the physicality: These still seem to come right out of their makers’ dreams and into ours.

Pilobolus continues through Aug. 11 at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea; (212) 242-0800 or joyce.org.

-A Later Review

Somersaults and Dreamy Shadows

By GIA KOURLAS

Published: July 14, 2009

The New York Times

The usual flips and somersaults were ever present as Pilobolus Dance Theater performed to a sold-out crowd at the Joyce Theater on Monday night, but the main attraction was a bit of shadow play.

In “Dog•id,” a new production credited partly to Steven Banks, the head writer of the animated television series “SpongeBob SquarePants,” a girl finds herself trapped in a fantasy of shadows. There are five other main creators involved — including two of the company’s artistic directors Robby Barnett and Michael Tracy — but with so many cooks, “Dog•id” ends up strangely bland.

Set to an original score by David Poe, “Dog•id” begins with a white dress hanging in the center of the stage. Dancers converge from either side, pausing to pose toughly before tumbling across the floor. One cast member, Molly Gawler, wearing a white bra and panties, stands apart. With help from the others, she slips into the dress and a matching pair of ruffled bloomers.

In front of a screen, she rests on the backs of three men and falls asleep as they gently rock her. Behind the screen, images form: an elephant consumes a mouthful of hay, and a man’s grinning profile turns monstrous as a hand escapes from his mouth. Ms. Gawler, scratching her head, realizes that she’s trapped in a dream — or a nightmare.

Once she moves behind the screen, the appeal of her strong jaw, full lips and long eyelashes is suddenly more apparent in the form of a gamine silhouette. Dancers, huddled in heaps on the floor, snap at the hem of her dress like turtles, and as the dream becomes increasingly surreal and a larger screen is introduced, her personality turns obstinate. During a cooking scene she watches as ingredients — including a rat, a lobster and the kitchen sink — are tossed into a caldron.

But in “Dog•id,” which is decidedly rough around the edges (dancers can often be seen manipulating props), the unfinished quality seems less an intentional outcome than a result of the production’s being under-rehearsed. In the end Ms. Gawler, using her hands to form adorably cocked ears, transforms herself into a dog. As the work’s headstrong heroine, she is enchanting, doggedly so, even when “Dog•id” is not.

The program also included “Rushes,” from 2007, and “Redline,” a less ambitious premiere by Jonathan Wolken, the group’s other artistic director. In “Redline” six dancers hunch over, fixing their arms to their thighs while moving aggressively to electronic music. Acrobatics come into play; dancers, with support from others, flip high into the air, but the work is bereft of playfulness.

For a less pretentious foray into the Pilobolus formula, the group’s 1971 “Walklyndon” is a better bet. Choreographed by Mr. Barnett, Mr. Wolken, Lee Harris and Moses Pendleton, the dance, set to silence, remains a charmingly frisky exploration of stage crossings. While the company’s newer works are often packed with too many ideas, visual and otherwise, “Walklyndon” is a vaudevillian pleasure and it’s also a reminder: the high-flying antics of Pilobolus work best when everything about them is effortless.

Pilobolus continues through Aug. 8 at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue, at 19th Street, Chelsea; (212) 242-0800 or joyce.org.

Culture, Society, Politics: Choreographic Content

Pilobolus works often concern unique intents typically relatable to the audience members in some way. Here are a few examples and a reference for each concerning how they may relate to the knowledge of the general public:

Symbiosis

∞Pilobolus is well known for this work where a male-female duet explores the birth of a relationship in the same context as two creatures discovering each other. It is described as a Darwinian investigation and love story intertwined and is heralded for its majesty and emotional depth.

Reference: Darwinism

First published Fri Aug 13, 2004

Darwinism designates a distinctive form of evolutionary explanation for the history and diversity of life on earth. Its original formulation is provided in the first edition of On the Origin of Species in 1859. This entry first formulates ‘Darwin's Darwinism’ in terms of five philosophically distinctive themes: (i) probability and chance, (ii) the nature, power and scope of selection, (iii) adaptation and teleology, (iv) nominalism vs. essentialism about species and (v) the tempo and mode of evolutionary change. Both Darwin and his critics recognized that his approach to evolution was distinctive on each of these topics, and it remains true that, though Darwinism has developed in many ways unforeseen by Darwin, its proponents and critics continue to differentiate it from other approaches in evolutionary biology by focusing on these themes. This point is illustrated in the second half of the entry by looking at current debates in the philosophy of evolutionary biology on these five themes, with a special focus on Stephen Jay Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.

Megawatt

∞This work is a full company piece depicting the hustle and bustle of our modern world. The movement is based off of energetic endurance and prowess and is described as addressing the “high voltage” world we live in.

Reference: AMERICA THE BUSY

Tips for staying sane in a busy world

· Sacred selfishness: Author Bud Harris coined this phrase. The concept is that we should make time for ourselves so we don’t get burnt out. If we’re burnt out, we can’t be as effective for others or on the job.

· Control the phone: Don’t allow it to control you. You don’t HAVE to take all calls if they aren’t urgent matters. It’s OK to screen calls and return them when you’re able. Here’s a hint: Return them right before lunch or quitting time, when the person on the other end of the line is ready to leave. That shortens the call.

· Delegate: But remember, you still are responsible for making sure the work is done.

· Two letters: N-o: It can be hard to say “no,” but don’t be afraid to do so. Don’t just say “yes” in order to avoid others’ disapproval. A “no” answer is nothing personal. It simply means, for various reasons, you can’t make the request a priority right now.

· Prioritize: If you make a to-do list, prioritize it so you don’t end up with a long list of things that make you feel that they must be done right now.

Source: Samuel M. Natale, a professor of strategy at Adelphi University’s Hagedorn School of Business, in Garden City, N.Y., in the 2004 Regent Business Review

Ben's Admonition

∞ This is a riveting work portrayed by two men suspended from hooks swinging in the air. This piece addresses closeness and distance in terms of independence and self reliance. Intimacy and war are also represented by the title bringing the piece to the assumption of relevance to Benjamin Franklin’s statement about signing the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

Reference: Benjamin Franklin

"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." - Benjamin Franklin -In the Continental Congress just before signing the Declaration of Independence, 1776.

In government, he made contributions in developing unity and democracy in our colonies, and he also served for many years as official colonial agent in London for Pennsylvania. He pointed out for a long time to the British Government that taxation without representation was a principle upon which America stood firmly.

"It is a common observation here (Paris) that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own." -Letter to Samuel Cooper, 1777

Along The Lines of Lineage

Pilobolus originated from four non-trained dancers who were undergraduates enrolled in their first ever college dance class at Dartmouth College. Their studies were more concentrated on Biology and Chemistry, which proves to be a contributing artistic factor later on. Robby Barnette, Lee Harris, Jonathan Wolken, and Moses Pendelton comprised the inception of this unique and groundbreaking performance company. The four were assigned to a group choreography project for their class taught by Allison Chase. The project was so well received that they decided to choreograph for the end of the year show at Dartmouth. Performed in 1971, the work was so successful that it was taken to a performance at New York University that same year. The unique movement composed by the newly derived dancers dazzled audience members. Their piece was choreographed with a new approach called “collective choreography” or “choreography by consensus”.

The movement and choreographic ideas were so witty and fresh that the students developed a significant following and decided to form a company. Their works have semblances of gymnastics, folk dancing, balancing, pole-vaulting, and fencing specifically because these were the non-academic movement backgrounds of the four creators of the company. The company members drew inspiration from one another by attempting new and inventive ways to defy gravity and challenge typical conceptions of movement. Their influences were not drawn from the similarities, but the differences found between the contemporary dancers of their time and their company. As a company, Pilobolus was determined to give the audience something they had never seen before. They were a major handprint in the world of concert dance and still apply their intentions for the company’s creative movement processes to this day.

The Form Is The Message, Or Is It The Content?

Pilobolus is most commonly known for its humorous and inventive works. The self-sufficient team of artistic directors and dancers are revered for its collective group shapes and contortions, weight sharing, acrobatics, cultural messages included in their pieces. The artistry, creativity, and athleticism were unparalleled at the time the company was born. Several offshoots have erupted from this company’s inception including Momix which was created from a collaboration between Pendelton and Chase in 1980. Pilobolus is still known for its “kinetic and visual impact” during performances due to the collective molding of dancers. Unlike other companies and choreographic works at this time, Pilobolus artists were lucky to not have been confined by the “limited conceptions of dance held by many choreographers”.

Pilobolus set a distinct challenge to the art of dance over thirty-five years ago, and is still breaking new boundaries of the performance world in its present day works. Pilobolus is not a stagnant company primarily due to its commitment to creating at least three new works every year. Though many have tried, few have been able to successfully surprise the world of concert dance with such movement and gravitational challenges as those found in most of the Pilobolus works. The forerunners of Pilobolus have since retired from dancing in the company, but are currently the artistic directors of the company excluding Pendelton and Chase. Michael Tracy is also a current artistic director who stemmed from the company. The company opened an educational institute in 1990 called the Pilobolus Institute that tours schools, presents workshops, and expands upon the company’s activities. In addition to the creation of the educational institute Pilobolus has also created an organization named Pilobolus Creative Services where “first rate movement services” could be found and used by the commercial world. With credits and awards old and new the company has stood the test of time. And for its unique contributions to and challenges of the concert dance world Pilobolus will be known forever for “changing the image of the dancer”. This also continues currently with every new work presented by the company.

Pilobolus: Changing The Concept of Dance

From my research I have found that Pilobolus is a crucial maverick in the world of dance. This company has taken the typical understanding of concert dance and shattered it with new and innovative techniques. Pilobolus is not afraid of challenging movement barriers, and that fascinates me. Most of the pieces are formed with substantial intent concerning issues such as politics, genetic research, and day to day activities. This is very similar to other famous concert dance companies and artists such as Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, and the Paul Taylor Dance Company.
Though similarities can be drawn between Pilobolus and other concert dance companies and artists, Pilobolus will forever be known as the gavitational challenger for concert dance. In my opinion, no other company before Pilobolus was so creative and demanding with what it asked of the dancers' bodies. Such a range of possibilities was seen. The contortions and acrobatics included in the dancing indeed provided a new element for the audience, but for me it honestly provided a whole new world for me and my understanding of the concert dance world. I am very pleased with what I have found as a result of my research presented in this project. I have found answers to my previous inquiries. I now know the point of Pilobolus. To me, Pilobolus means breaking rules, finding and creating new expanses to the limitations of the human body, and within those new discoveries and breaking of rules a discovery of a completely unique artistry. Pilobolus is important. Pilobolus matters. Because it is a pivotal asset to the concert dance world and its continuation and growth.