The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
‘Come to Your Senses’
Dance troupe ‘Pilobolus’ to perform at Jacob’s Pillow
BECKET, Mass. — Award-winning Pilobolus returns to the Ted Shawn Theatre with “Come To Your Senses,” a program about accessing all five senses, Wednesdays through Sundays through July 1.
The “mind-blowing troupe of wildly creative and physically daring dancers” (NY Newsday) guides audiences through a multi-sensory experience alongside repertory classics and new work, including the first allwomen trio in the company’s history. The Washington Post praises, “Pilobolus embodies a large part of what the best in contemporary dance is all about: discovery.”
“We are thrilled to have Pilobolus return to Jacob’s Pillow and to see the work they created for the Inside/Out stage last year reimagined in the historic Ted Shawn Theatre. Their program will also include repertoire that activates all of our senses while celbrating the beauty and power of the human body,” said Jacob’s Pillow director, Pamela Tatge.
Founded in 1971 with their Pillow debut just three years later, Pilobolus is known for its collaborative dance creations which break movement and visual boundaries to reveal the graphic capabilities of the human body in surprising ways. Named after the light-loving fungus Pilobolus crystallinus, the company performs for over 300,000 people each year and has created over 120 works with with their rare vocabulary of humor, invention, and drama.
“Come To Your Senses” intersperses new creations with long-time repertory classics. Beginning with the new work, Eye Opening based on a recent collaboration with RadioLab, Pilobolus uses a single prop of an eyeball to interpret how we see. Additional works created this year include Warp & Weft, in celebration of the female members of Pilobolus, set to
the “raw and infectious” (NPR Music) music of Indie rocker Thao Nguyen.
Alongside those new collaborations, Pilobolus performs Gnomen, the iconic all-male quartet created in 1997 and performed regularly ever since; Symbiosis, a duet of intertwined and intermingled bodies, notably featured as a viral TED Talk; and the reworking of Branches, a site-specific Pillow commission that premiered on the Inside/Out stage in celebration of the Pillow’s natural
setting and the power of nature.
In 2017, Pilobolus created Branches, a site-specific commission for the Inside/ Out Performance Series in honor of the Pillow’s 85th Anniversary with a rare three-night engagement on the iconic outdoor stage.
Pilobolus performed at the festival in 1974, 1978, 1985, 1987, 1988, and 1991, and was co-presented by the Pillow at MASS MoCA in 2005. The company has also developed work at the Pillow, including one of its latest works Shadowland, through the Creative Development Residency Program. Founding member
Robby Barnett was artistic director of Jacob’s Pillow’s Men Dancers, a project developed to celebrate the centennial of Pillow founder Ted Shawn in 1991, which toured internationally through 1994.
Pilobolus began at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 1971. Moses Pendleton, an English literature major and crosscountry skier; Jonathan Wolken, a philosophy science major and fencer; and Steve Johnson, a pre-med student and pole vaulter, were enrolled in a dance composition class taught by Alison Becker Chase. In that class, they created
their first dance, which they titled “Pilobolus.”
Pilobolus crystallinus is a phototropic (light loving) fungus. Commonly known as “Hat Thrower,” its spores accelerate 0–45 mph in the first millimeter of their flight and adhere to wherever they land. The father of Jonathan Wolken was studying pilobolus in his biology lab when the group first formed. The name was apt, and stuck. The group then went on to create dozens of dance works with its founding members Robby Barnett, Alison Chase, Martha Clarke, Lee Harris, Moses Pendleton, Michael Tracy,
and Jonathan Wolken. In the more than four decades since, Pilobolus has performed on Broadway, at the Oscars, and the Olympic games, and has appeared on television, in movies, in advertisements, and in schools and businesses and created over 120 dance works. The company continues to propel the seeds of expression via human movement to every corner of the world, growing and changing each year while reaching new audiences and exploring new visual and musical planes. Locally, the dance company performs annually at the Warner Theatre in Torrington
and other area venues — when it is not traveling internationally to perform.
Pilobolus at Jacob’s Pillow, with performances at the Ted Shawn Theatre, will be held Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Thursday, Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $75, $65 and $45.
A limited number of $35 tickets are available; adults ages 18-35 are eligible. One ticket per person; each guest must show valid I.D. when picking up tickets at will call.
For information and tickets go to www.jacobspillow.org.