Dance Reviews

Nov 27, 2009 - Artown presents the exceptional "Pilobolus Dance Theater" at Reno's Grand Theater

By Jack Neal

The celebration of the human form through poetry in motion best describes what “Pilobolus Dance Theater” does. This exceptionally artistic, magnetic troupe played Reno Friday night (11/20/09) at Reno’s Grand Theater. “Pilobolus” was sponsored by the Reno is Artown Festival of events beyond its normally exclusive summer July dates. The company enthralled a vast audience in a venue created for expansive shows. Amazingly, “Pilobolus” - with only seven dancers - had no problem filling the world’s largest indoor stage with the most interesting and unusual evening of dance and movement.

There were only two drawbacks to an otherwise superlative presentation. The performance began twenty minutes late, an inconvenience professional companies should not perpetrate on those portions of the public who care enough to arrive on time. The sound track was much too loud, a discomfort and health risk to anyone within ear-shot of the company’s football-stadium-size speakers. One cannot freely enjoy the pleasures “Pilobolus” offers in abundance, when the assault on the ears is as extensive as it was Friday night.

I count myself on the side of “Pilobolus” detractors who find much in the company’s static repertory but a rehash of other acrobatic, pseudo-dance excursions of fancy. But rehash does not prevent enjoyment of much, in what was a smartly presented and stunningly executed program.

In a program of five sequences that opened with “Lanterna Magica” (2008) and ended with “Megawatt” (2004), it’s hard to separate dancer-athletes who are so consistently glued together in ensemble pieces. The exception being “Pseudopodia” with male solo dancer Jun Kuribayashi. Clearly a virtuoso work that’s more acrobatic than dance, Kuribayashi impressed with spins and a long series of somersaults and extraordinary feats of balance. Somersaults being a staple in the “Pilobolus” canon, “Gnomen” (1997) starts with multiple somersaults that contain not one or two performers, but four. Somersaults marinate what “Pilobolus” does and transforms the image of the dancers from rhythmic footwork, which the company can do quite admirably, to the ancient image of dancers as acrobatic clowns and tumblers. The intertwining of bodies, so much a part of the “Pilobolus” image, is as much living sculpture as it is a pure study in dance.

Since, for the most part, it’s difficult to tell one performer from another and since Kuribayashi has already been mentioned, all of the company’s extraordinary dancers, or acrobats, or tumblers, or body sculpturists need to be credited. Other “Pilobolus” performance-artists are: Winston Dynamite Brown, Matt del Rosario, Eriko Jimbo, Nile H. Russell, Annika Sheaff, and Christopher Whitney.

The company is greatly influenced by co-founder - in 1971 - Jonathan Wolken. Wolken is credited entirely or in part for the choreographic inventions of four of the program’s sequences: “Pseudopodia,” “Walklyndon” (1971), “Gnomen,” and “Megawatt.” “Pilobolus” lighting designs, largely by Neil Peter Jampolis, provide consistently handsome illusions of shadow and light. For the challenges of costuming credit for the company’s interesting creations goes to Liz Prince, Malcom McCormick, Kitty Daly and Eileen Thomas.

“Pilobolus’s” dedication to preserving its distinctive style of dramatic illusion, so appreciated by so many, does create an unabashed physical style that’s hard to resist. It’s a style that has worked well for the fame of “Pilobolus Dance Theater” for nearly four decades.

For information about future Reno is Artown events call 775-322-1538 or go on line at RenoisArtown.com. Violinist Itzhak Perlman will appear under the Artown banner January 21 (2010) at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 South Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada.