Tom's Life Bits

User Tools

Site Tools

Trace: • copellia • picasso_and_the_allure_of_language_oct_17_2009 • trip_to_bountiful_mar_23 • season_overview
adf:pilobolus_july_1_2100

Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

Link to this comparison view

Both sides previous revisionPrevious revision
Next revision		Previous revision
adf:pilobolus_july_1_2100 [2011/07/02 10:02] – tomgeeadf:pilobolus_july_1_2100 [2011/07/03 18:33] (current) – tomgee
Line 2: Line 2:
  We went to the DPAC in Durham on Friday night, July 1. Our first trip to the DPAC. Pilobolus did not disappoint. They displayed their amazing physicality, sculpted bodies and the new as well as the old. It started with "Untitled" a dance where ladies in long skirts dance on the shoulders of nude men. They waltz, sashay and move around the stage before the nude men pop out. Two other men appear in suits and spar and fight before they joining the nude men under the ladies dresses, forming a trio. The second piece was a delight, "Seraph". A blue "hovercraft" appeared. The dancer danced around the craft. Then a red one appeared and started to chase the dancer. Great dancing with all his movements rolling, tumbling and flying off stage to escape the craft. The third piece was "Korokoro", a Japanese Bhuto inspired piece where the dancers were powdered in white and rolled and tumbled together. They also climbed up out of a standing mass of dancers and slid head first on their backs down the front. Amazing. The next piece was techno wizardry with a camera table and video screen. Dancers in body suits made shapes on a camera table which came out as kaleidoscopic effects on video projected on a screen. It was short and very loud. Amazing but I'm glad it was short. The last number is my all time favorite, "Day Two". It involves the 4 men as neanderthal cave men, then the woman come in topless and form shapes, amoebas and life forms with the men. Libbie's favorite is the dancers popping out of a tarp as plants. The background music included thunder and rain.  The curtain call is the water filled tarp serving as a water slide. The dancers slide across stage on the film of water. Once again, I enjoyed the two topless Pilobolus women, this time standing in full light taking their bow with the company.  We went to the DPAC in Durham on Friday night, July 1. Our first trip to the DPAC. Pilobolus did not disappoint. They displayed their amazing physicality, sculpted bodies and the new as well as the old. It started with "Untitled" a dance where ladies in long skirts dance on the shoulders of nude men. They waltz, sashay and move around the stage before the nude men pop out. Two other men appear in suits and spar and fight before they joining the nude men under the ladies dresses, forming a trio. The second piece was a delight, "Seraph". A blue "hovercraft" appeared. The dancer danced around the craft. Then a red one appeared and started to chase the dancer. Great dancing with all his movements rolling, tumbling and flying off stage to escape the craft. The third piece was "Korokoro", a Japanese Bhuto inspired piece where the dancers were powdered in white and rolled and tumbled together. They also climbed up out of a standing mass of dancers and slid head first on their backs down the front. Amazing. The next piece was techno wizardry with a camera table and video screen. Dancers in body suits made shapes on a camera table which came out as kaleidoscopic effects on video projected on a screen. It was short and very loud. Amazing but I'm glad it was short. The last number is my all time favorite, "Day Two". It involves the 4 men as neanderthal cave men, then the woman come in topless and form shapes, amoebas and life forms with the men. Libbie's favorite is the dancers popping out of a tarp as plants. The background music included thunder and rain.  The curtain call is the water filled tarp serving as a water slide. The dancers slide across stage on the film of water. Once again, I enjoyed the two topless Pilobolus women, this time standing in full light taking their bow with the company.
    
 +
 +----
  
 ==== Body-Bending Choreography ==== ==== Body-Bending Choreography ====
Line 47: Line 49:
 That sense of humor cropped up when Tracy explained the title of the new dance. "Korokoro" means "rolling" in Japanese. The dance opens with some rolling. And "it [the word] rolls off the tongue like Pilobolus," Tracy said. That sense of humor cropped up when Tracy explained the title of the new dance. "Korokoro" means "rolling" in Japanese. The dance opens with some rolling. And "it [the word] rolls off the tongue like Pilobolus," Tracy said.
  
 +----
 +
 +
 +==== Tech tricks add dimension to ADF's Pilobolus ====
 +
 +//BY ROY C. DICKS - Correspondent//\\
 +
 +
 +DURHAM In its 40th year, Pilobolus continues to amaze and amuse. This weekend's American Dance Festival program again proves how the company turns the most sophisticated audiences into wide-eyed kids.
 +
 +New technologies are adding dimension to the company's gymnastics-based works. For "All Is Not Lost," the first of three premieres, collaborators OK Go and Trish Sie (creator of the band's popular YouTube videos) project live video images onto a screen. A camera underneath a huge glasslike table allows kaleidoscopic views as the dancers slide and roll across it. Actions shift from swimming to space walking, creating caterpillarlike creatures as they go. At just six minutes, the piece evokes more wonder and delight than many companies' full evenings.
 +
 +The slightly longer "Seraph" employs talents from MIT's Distributed Robotics Laboratory, which supply UFO-like objects that fly silently around dancer Matt Del Rosario as they blink various colors. The effect inspires joyful gasps as dancer and machines interact, but the idea needs more development to move beyond the gimmick level.
 +
 +"Korokoro" is a 25-minute work in collaboration with Japanese Butoh choreographer Takuya Muramatsu. Six dancers begin as weak, trembling forms making repeated efforts to stand upright and connect with one another. The atmosphere is primal, the actions evolutionary. The dancers astound in their balance, strength and flexibility, combining into different forms and emerging as new two-person creatures after an apocalyptic event. The piece conjures mesmerizing alien worlds, but several sections go on longer than the concept can sustain.
 +
 +Two pieces from the company's first decade confirm its permanent place in dance history. "Untitled" begins as a bucolic outing by two women in long dresses whose sudden doubling in height comes from male dancers beneath. What seems lightly comic soon turns Freudian as these hidden men are released from underneath, their nude bodies in stark contrast to the women's nattily dressed gentlemen suitors. The psychological layers still fascinate.
 +
 +"Day Two" is Moses Pendleton's vision of the dawn of creation, where humans enact fierce rituals and primitive creatures skittle about. The dancers' glistening bodies astonish in their athletic sensuality as they form unbelievable structures. The curtain call, in which dancers slide across a water-slicked stage, puts the cap on a must-see event. 
 +
 +----
 +{{:adf:imgd141.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd142.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd143.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd144.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd145.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd146.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd147.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd148.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd149.jpg?600|}}
 +{{:adf:imgd150.jpg?600|}}
  
  
adf/pilobolus_july_1_2100.1309615347.txt.gz · Last modified: 2011/07/02 10:02 by tomgee