An evening of short MOMIX pieces is a creative smorgasbord. Founder/Artistic Director Moses Pendleton’s declaration that “Light, costume, sound, and sequence are as important to me as choreography,” is immediately evident.
The captivating Pleiades (opening) set against a background of night sky, features three female performers clad in shimmering silver. Each carries a large X made of two centrally bound flexible rods bobbing with body movement – rays of light? points of kinetic stars? Dancers move slowly, ritualistically, like hieroglyphs, to pulsing/ humming music. Xes are held above, below, vertical, flat…Like dervishes, dancers hypnotically whirl. (Simona di Tucci, Heather Magee, Jennifer Chicheportiche)
Tuu – Jonathan Eden and Sarah Nachbauer (Rehearsal Photo courtesy of MOMIX)
Tuu opens with a woman wrapped so tightly around the upper body of her standing male partner, we can’t see where one form begins and the other ends. Languidly she unfurls as if testing her limbs and the air. The pair separates but sensually rejoins creating sculpture after sculpture with breathtaking strength and control. Haunting voices of will and want integrate music. (Jonathan Eden and Sarah Nachbauer)
The extraordinary Pole Dance is focused, warrior like. Men in constant motion employ vaulting poles to whirl, fly and ambulate. With perfect balance and momentum, they spin around tilting rods as if stable, bodies coiled then extended like banners, exerting muscle, precision. A visually arresting exercise in discipline and conviction. (Jonathan Eden, Anthony Bocconi, Jason Williams)
Left: Jake Stainback in Daddy Longlegs (Photo by Todd Burnsed)
Right: Dreamcatcher – Heather Magee Spilka and Jason Williams (Photo by Max Pucciarello)
Three cowboys are featured in Daddy Longlegs, each with one extra long, wooden leg beneath fringed pants. The appendage allows tilting outside gravity, rising past height, twirling while centrally rooted, and simulation of horseback riding with cartoon panache. Dancers project wry western attitude from the tilt of their hats to mimed gun play and smashed saloon glasses. Ambling takes on a whole new meaning. (Jonathan Eden, Jacob Stainback, Jason Williams)
Spawning seems to take place undersea – double entendre? The acrobatic Dream Catcher employs a large, metal doodle that acts as a kind of rolling jungle gym. (Sculpture Design & Construction – Alan Boeding) In Paper Trails, projections cover the entire stage which now includes unrolled paper with which dancers interact manifesting shapes/structures/objects. Echoes of Narcissus is performed on a mirror to stunning effect.
Spawning -The Company (Photo by Eddie Fernandez)
If You Need Some Body is reminiscent of pieces choreographed for/performed during Pendleton’s earlier involvement with Pilobolus. (When later asked, the artistic director tells us he thinks of himself as a skewer with two kebabs.) Soft dummies of men and women partner with live performers in humorous, sometimes suggestive ways. Boneless, the cloth people can flap and flail, arms and legs akimbo. Males are at one point attached to female dancers with heads pinned beneath skirts, at another with hands pointedly on boogying rear ends. A conservatively dressed female is found praying at the center of physical abandon. Dummies are tossed about in a free for all finish. It’s fun. (The Company)
During an informal after talk, Pendleton tells us Marigolds began by dying petticoats orange. Sounds simple enough.We see are layer upon layer upon layer of petal ruffles all but swallowing dancers. Leg stems protrude carrying the flowers. Imagine little girls in their first tutus. (Jennifer Chicheportiche, Simona di Tucci, Heather Magee, Sarah Nachbauer, Jocelyn Wallace)
Marigolds – The Company (Photo by Max Pucciarello)
Also in service of its costume are Aqua Flora and Man Fan. In the latter, an undulating cloth fan, the height of the proscenium, folds into itself and opens with inimitable grace as lights play on its surface and the artist beneath slowly shifts . (Jonathan Eden)
Man Fan – Jonathan Eden (Photo by Equilibre Monaco)
Visually innovative, sometimes admittedly enchanting images that revolve around manipulation of what artists are wearing don’t hold up to those of Pendleton’s alternate movement vocabulary.
The show is ingenious. MOMIX continues to be one of our most original companies. Symbiosis of creative aspects is compelling, images fantastical, music eclectic. Performers possess consummate skill, inhabiting movement rather than executing it. Unlike many troops, facial expression broadly contributes. To attend a MOMIX show is to go on a journey, a trip- double entendre intended. The audience agrees.
Phoebe Katzin’s Costumes are wonderfully evocative.
Opening photo: Pleiades – Simona di Tucci, Heather Magee, Jennifer Chicheportiche (Photo by Max Pucciarello)
Echoes of Narcissus – Sarah Nachbauer (Photo by Charles Azzopardi)
To read Alix’s interview with Moses Pendleton, click here.
MOMIX
Founder and Artistic Director Moses Pendleton
Associate Director/First Assistant- Cynthia Quinn
July 24-August 12 2018
Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue (18th Street)
