The 2009-2010 season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center continues its seventh season with the innovative and compelling Pilobolus, October 23-25, 2009 at Ahmanson Theatre. Pilobolus was created as an experiment among three men and one open-minded professor in a Dartmouth College dance class. From these exploratory beginnings has emerged a groundbreaking dance company that combines athleticism, grace and humor with an inspirational sense of harmony. Still evolving after 38 years, Pilobolus bridges pop culture and the cultural arts to create an unforgettable experience.
"Pilobolus is a mind-blowing troupe of wildly creative and physically daring dancers who leap, fly, intertwine and break all the rules...Audiences should expect the unexpected with Pilobolus" - NYC Newsday
Tickets for Pilobolus are available August 15th at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Box Office, 135 North Grand Avenue. Tickets are also available through Ticketmaster Phone Charge at (800) 982-278, at all Ticketmaster Outlets and online at www.ticketmaster.com. For groups of 15 or more, visit www.musiccenter.org.
Pilobolus will perform the following pieces from their repertoire: "Redline", "Rushes", "Gnomen" and "Day Two."
DanceTalks: Thirty Minute moderated discussions begin one hour prior to curtain and will take place in the Ahmanson Theatre.
About the repertoire:
REDLINE (2009)
Choreographed by Jonathan Wolken in collaboration with Matt Del Rosario, Andrew Herro, Jeffrey Huang, Jun Kuribayashi, Jenny Mendez, Annika Sheaff and Christopher Whitney.
Music by Battles, DJ Champion, Autechre. Costumes by Liz Prince Lighting by Neil Jampolis
REDLINE is the fifth in a series of new works generously commissioned by Dartmouth College.
Creation of this work was also made possible in part by a gift from Darcy and Treacy Beyer. It was premiered at the Broward Center in Ft. Lauderdale FL on January 16, 2009.
Jonathan Wolken's REDLINE examines the beauty and futility of physical battle. Accompanied by a driving and seductive score by Battles and Autechre, this full company work is full of tremulous energy balanced by a graceful discipline.
RUSHES (2007)
Choreographed by Inbal Pinto. Avshalom Pollak and Robby Barnett, based on original material developed with Talia Beck, Otis Cook, Josie M Coyoc, Matt Kent, Renée Jaworski and Andreas Merk, and created in collaboration with Andy Herro, Jeffrey Huang, Renée Jaworski, Jun Kuribayashi, Jenny Mendez, Manelich Minniefee, Edwin Olvera, and Annika Sheaff
Music by Eddie Sauter: Miles Davis: John Blow:
Big Noise from Winnetka, used by permission
Dukes of Dixieland (www.dukesofdixieland.com:
Arvo Part
Costumes by Avshalom Pollak, Inbal Pinto. Lighting by Yoann Tivoli
Film Animation by Peter Sluszka
RUSHES (2007) was co-commissioned by the American Dance Festival with support from the Doris Duke Awards for New Work and additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; by the Joyce Theater's Stephen and Cathy Weinroth Fund for New Work; and by Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater, Florida. It was also made possible in part by generous contributions from the Office of Cultural Affairs , Consulate General of Israel in New York and from Jonathan M. Nadler.
The first of Pilobolus's collaborating partners projects, RUSHES is the result of Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak's collaboration with Pilobolus AD Robby Barnett and our company. The result -
an isolated community of broken dreams. Jacques Tati meets Gogol in a breakthrough for Pilobolus's constantly morphing aesthetic.
GNOMEN (1997)
Choreographed by Robby Barnett and Jonathan Wolken in collaboration with Matt Kent, Gaspard Louis, Trebien Pollard, and Mark Santillano
Music by Paul Sullivan
Throat Singing: Matt Kent
Costume Design & Construction by Eileen Thomas
Lighting by David M. Chapman
This piece is dedicated to the memory of our friend and colleague, Jim Blanc. It was made possible in part by contributions from his family and friends as well as by a commission from the American Dance Festival with support from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Philip Morris Companies, Inc., New Production Fund.
One of Pilobolus's classic men's quartets, GNOMEN lyrically explores emerging relationships using an unusual and inventive physical vocabulary.
DAY TWO (1980)
Directed by Moses Pendleton
Choreographed by Daniel Ezralow, Robert Faust, Jamey Hampton, Carol Parker, Moses Pendleton, Peter Pucci, Cynthia Quinn, and Michael Tracy
Music by Brian Eno, David Byrne and the Talking Heads
Lighting by Neil Peter Jampolis based on a concept by David M. Chapman.
Commissioned by Peter, Ginevra, and Helen.
One of Pilobolus's classic works, DAY TWO enacts the second day of the creation of the world, from its earliest forms of life to the moment to the moment at which creatures of the earth take flight intro the air. One of the company's most amazing works, set to a soundtrack from Brian Eno and Talking Heads, DAY TWO captures the awe of evolution and the wonder of existence.
About Pilobolus
Pilobolus began in 1971 as an outsider dance company, and quickly became renowned the world over for its imaginative and athletic exploration of creative collaboration. Nearly 40 years later, it has evolved into a pioneering American cultural institution of the 21st century. The company now revolves around three nuclei of activity: Pilobolus Dance Theater, the umbrella for a series of radically innovative and globally acclaimed concert dance companies; The Pilobolus Institute, unique educational programming for schools, colleges, and public arts organizations as well as a series of classes and leadership workshops for corporate executives, employees, and business schools; and Pilobolus Creative Services, a division specializing in a wide range of movement services for film, advertising, publishing, commercial clients, and corporate events.
Pilobolus is based in Washington Depot, Connecticut, and performs for stage and television audiences all over the world. Pilobolus works appear in the repertories of major dance companies-the Joffrey, Feld, Ohio, Arizona, and Aspen/Santa Fe Ballets in the U.S., the Ballet National de Nancy et de Lorraine and the Ballet du Rhin in France, and Italy's Verona Ballet-and the company has recently begun a series of major creative collaborations through its International Collaborators Project, including new productions with the famed writer and illustrator, Maurice
Sendak; the Israeli choreographic team, Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak; and the remarkable American puppeteer, Basil Twist.
Pilobolus has received a number of prestigious honors, including the Berlin Critic's Prize, the Brandeis Award, the New England Theatre Conference Prize, and a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in cultural programming. In June 2000 Pilobolus received the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in choreography. In 2007 Robby Barnett, Michael Tracy and Jonathan Wolken received the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery
Endowment Fellowship from Dartmouth College.
The company has also been featured, with great popularity, on broadcast media: in 2004, CBS' 60 Minutes; in 2007, the Academy Awards, hosted by Ellen Degeneres, and shortly thereafter, the Oprah Winfrey Show; and, most recently, on the Late Show with Conan O'Brien. The physical vocabularies of Pilobolus works are not drawn from traditions of codified dance movement but are invented, emerging from intense periods of improvisation and creative play. This process has been the source of much interest, in response to which the company inaugurated the Pilobolus Institute, an educational outreach program using the art of choreography as a model for creative thinking in any field. The Institute offers sustained programs for both children and adults, non-dancers as well as dancers, around the country, as well as a series of leadership workshops for corporations and business schools. Recent work includes programs at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, and the Babcock School at Wake Forest University. The Institute also maintains an ongoing residency in the Theater Studies Program at Yale University.
The third arm of the company's activity, Pilobolus Creative Services, is a choreographic and performance collective providing movement design and production for commercial applications in business and advertising. PCS has made television spots for Mobil, Ford, Toyota, Opel, and Hyundai; created live events for IBM, McKinsey, United Technologies, Dupont, and Merck; and has presented gala performances for Joe Boxer, Marithe Girbaud, MAC Cosmetics, Krizia,
Heidelburg Druckmaschinen, UBS Investment Bank, and Orange, a key brand of French Telecom. PCS has also produced two books for national distribution, Twisted Yoga and The Human Alphabet, and releases an annual calendar of dance photography in collaboration with a number of noted American photographers.
Our 2009 season will mark Pilobolus' 39th year. The company has continued to grow, expanding and refining its unusual collaborative methods to produce a body of over 100 choreographic works, and while it has become an institution and a genre unto itself in the world of American dance theater, Pilobolus remains as innovative and influential as ever.
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