Momix Delights Audience With Movement and Light

Momix creator, Moses Pendleton, uses light to control not only what audience sees in Momix performances, but how they see it. That allows him and the company to take dance approaches developed when he was at Pilobolus to new places - especially in staging them in ways that absolutely delight audiences. That was certainly the case at Momix's concert in CU/Boulder's cavernous Macky Auditorium (January 29, 2010), in a program that featured a puppet, lots of live dancers, dance, and light, light, more light. And with unique props as big as anything even Diavolo could devise. Lighting was often a device used to focus audiences eyes, and was sometimes so dim, or heavily torqued to side lighting, as to fatigue those eyes.

The program provided fourteen works of varying length, almost all of which resulted in audience gasps of delight and surprise. Some like "Discman" - which presented a uniquely lighted Bread and Puppet sized puppet - and "E.C" - which was based in dancer shadows projected on a back lit scrim and very similar to Pilobolus' "Dog ID" - were delightful performance art. Other works such as "Tuu" were less about lighting and more about dance movement, although even there lighting was a major aspect of the work.

Several works involved unique props - e.g., a huge rolling prop in "Dream Catcher" and pulsing umbrella supported fabric in "Medusa" - or more common props - like balls in "Moon Beams," skis in "Millenium Skiva," and long poles in "Pole Dance" and "Sputnik." In all of those works the props were used and/or manipulated by stunning dancers using creative ways to move on, in, or with those props. "Aqua Flora" was particularly interesting as Nicole Loizdes used subtle changes in speed and body position to transform hanging strands into seemingly seamless, spinning fabric. In other works such as "Geese" and "The Wind Up," lighting trumped movement, even though movements were quite wonderful.

Both Momix and Pilobolus are dance companies which struggle with a perception that their work is "eye candy" that lacks substance. I think that is a bad rap for Pilobolus, which often places meaning there if one looks past the stunning intertwining and cantilevered movement. Momix adds lots of wonderful lighting, and makes no pretense of "meaning." You know what? Not one person in the sell-out crowd at the Macky cared at all. They just loved the show.

Donald K. Atwood

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