Dance Review: Pilobolus

The Pilobolus group, juggling between the need to justify its reputation and moving forward with new materials, assures that the mixture they offer will appeal to large audiences.

By ORA BRAFMAN
311_Pilobulos (photo credit: Courtesy)
311_Pilobulos
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Pilobolus
TAPAC, November 4
Dance company Pilobolus landed for its periodic visit and as always, one could count on its program to be perfectly executed by dancers with exceptional stamina.
After all, the Pilobolus group have been marketing around the world somewhat wild, physical dance-theater with athletic emphasis for 40 years. On its way up, Pilobolus over-passed more conventional American modern dance companies, while leaving on its tracks offspring companies like Momix, ISO, BodyVox etc.
On their previous visit in 2008, we got tickled to no end to see company dancers perform Rushes by our own Inbal Pinto and Avshalon Polack, which was by far one of the better additions to the company’s repertoire, ever. Naturally, expectations were high toward Hapless Hooligans in Still Moving (2010) in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize winner, cartoonist Art Spiegelman.
Being half an hour long it had plenty of time to go astray, and stumble on several overused gimmicks, some of which we could see in another shadows-play piece soon after.
As a rule, gimmick-based pieces, lose their flavor rather quickly.
The Pilobolus, juggling between the need to justify its reputation – which kept it afloat for such a long time – and moving forward with new materials, assures that the mixture they offer will appeal to large audiences and so, not all was lost.
The two dazzling works out of five were very different in nature. One was dynamic and dealt in pure movement while the other was intimate duet which took its time to blossom.
Redline (2009), danced by six dancers including the illustrious Jun Kuribayashi, a true dance machine, led a group dressed like video-game soldiers in pulsating, intricate drill that included high acrobatic jumps and rolls that were both hairraising and spine-tingling.
Eriko Jimbo and Jordan Kriston partnered for the Duet (1992), set to Norwegian folk songs, and offered an intriguing, physically elaborate interplay of two women who in turn carry each other, jointed by intense trust, showing that highly gymnastic technique in the right hands can also be poetic.