Dance Review

For all the fans that yearned the Momix experience, the legendary dance company finally arrived this week in Tel Aviv.

By ORA BRAFMAN
Momix Opus Cactus TAPAC July 16 For all the fans that yearned the Momix experience, the legendary dance company finally arrived this week in Tel Aviv. Momix, like Pilobolus or ISO, uses all the tricks in the book to create breathtaking aesthetic and imaginative visual illusions, often by objectifying the participants. This is the fourth decade that Moses Pendleton, the company's founder and artistic director, is perfecting his skills as choreographer. It is hard to believe that with the years, his artistic vision hasn't really changed or deepened. In "Opus Cactus," the only real noticeable change is that the current company is so polished that the show as a whole lost the essence of what Pendleton and his earlier colleagues had perfected - original, playful, young and wild nuances. Now, it seems Pendleton has given up on sharp humor and traded it in for a highly commercial Teflon-like product. In this day and age, mere tricks, simple rhythms and compositions can't hold one's interest for long. Even Pendleton is aware of that, I suspect - some of the 19 pieces he presented were shorter than a minute. There is a limited length of time one trick can hold its own.