Dance Review: Cheese Soiree, Pilobolus Dance Theater

Pilobolus Dance Theatre has a 38-year history of keeping their brand alive. Innovative in the 70’s, their signature style of acrobatic body constructions is still maintained today. Unfortunately, it is preserved by adding more and more cheese. At the opening night gala performance, the company serves four different kinds of cheese. The program includes three new works and one aged.

First is Dog-Id, their most recent piece using shadows. A lonely white dress stands center stage. The cast enters in true Pilobolus style with their most popular mode of travel, the backward roll. They lift one dancer and slip her into the dress, which begins this young girl’s journey through a dreamland built from shadows cast on screens by hidden dancers. Much of the movement in front of the screen consists of muscle-ly men lifting the girl to make her appear as if she were floating, something I’ve seen so many times, but done flawlessly enough to make up for the lack of novelty.

The shadow sequence begins with using only the dancers’ bodies to create fantastical shapes of animals and objects, which is what makes it fascinating. Later, props are introduced and it seems like cheating. As the scene becomes more slapstick comedy and progressively more cheesy, I’m convinced I’m watching a cartoon. I notice the program notes and it makes sense. Dog-id is a collaboration with Steven Banks, the head writer for SpongeBob.

Impressive acrobatic partnering is the best part of Redline by Pilobolus founder Jonathan Wolken. Some exciting, high-energy moments make me sit up straighter in my seat, while the slower sections don’t live up to the driving music nor do they contrast it enough to appear intentional. The cliché swing dance partnering tricks seem inappropriate to represent the intensity of war, and the dramatic death and reawakening of one dancer in the end is unintentionally comical.

Aged cheese is definitely better. The 1971 classic Walklyndon is also slapstick comedy, but has a simplicity and sophistication that is missing in their more recent works. In silence, dancers clad in yellow spandex pass across the stage creating a series of short scenarios and collisions. Nearing the end of the piece, a seemingly random parade of naked people skitter across the upstage. It’s brilliant, and opposed to the other pieces of cheese in the evening, this one is short and sweet.

Lastly Rushes, by Israeli choreographers Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak, is the most theatrical and emotionally engaging piece on the program. It demonstrates that the right choreographers can draw something more out of the same cast. A pedestrian scene is set with chairs, a train station perhaps. Two hunchbacked ladies accompany a trio of men with quirky walks, and stylized movement. Later they slip their feet into socks. The men pick one, and pull her around the stage, allowing her to gracefully glide on her socked feet. A widely used piece of music by Arvo Part comes in and I understand why this music is so popular in dance. It instantly transforms everything and I become completely engulfed in a magical world of floating movement.

Pilobolus continues to have sold out annual seasons at the Joyce, so they must be doing something right. The physicality of the performers is impressive and the content is accessible to a wide range of people. It draws a large, but unadventurous audience. There’s safety in seeing something you’ve seen before. And apparently a lot of people like cheese.

Photography by John Kane

iDANZ Critix Corner
Official Dance Review by Julie Fotheringham
Performance: Pilobolus Dance Theatre
Venue: The Joyce Theater, New York City
Date: July 13, 2009
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