Illusionist dance firm involves Fairfax | Arts & Leisure

MOMIX affords an unforgettable visible expertise 

 

In 1971, Moses Pendleton co-founded the ground-breaking Pilobolus Dance Theater in Connecticut, resulting in the creation of MOMIX 10 years later, an opportunity for his dancers to mix athletic dance, riveting music, outrageous costumes, props, and pure expertise to placed on a present like no different.

In the present day, Pendleton continues to function creative director and nonetheless hasn’t run out of concepts for revolutionary visions for the human physique on stage. 

MOMIX is a present like no different—it presents an entertaining multimedia expertise that transports audiences to a fantasy world by means of its trademark use of magical lighting and imagery, specializing in the great thing about the human kind mixed with nature, music, scenography, and life itself.

“It’s dance, however it’s not dance. It’s a present that doesn’t have the logic of a traditional musical,” Pendleton stated. “We use puppetry and props; it has some ballet and a few acrobatics and a few unusual illusions.”

Whereas Pendleton and his firm have introduced MOMIX to The Heart for the Arts at George Mason in years previous, on Oct. 1, a particular present will play on the Fairfax venue entitled, “Viva MOMIX.” Within the present, small vignettes make up the two-act efficiency, mixing conventional MOMIX kinds of phantasm, magnificence, magic, enjoyable, and inventiveness.

“Folks ought to come into MOMIX with none expectation, aside from to take just a little journey into MOMIX land as an escape from the tough realities that they might or is probably not experiencing,” Pendleton stated. “It’s extremely bodily, entertaining, and plenty of enjoyable, too.”

The enthralling program is a mix-and-match number of sections from a few of MOMIX’s hottest acts.

“It’s just a little fantasy world that’s made up of shut to twenty quick numbers which might be highlights of actions we’ve accomplished in productions through the years,” Pendleton stated. “We see it as a ‘better of’ kind of present; it’s our compilation album and every bit has its personal world musically. It’s going to transfer with the dynamic of an actual vaudeville present.”

For example, in “Botanica,” the work reveals off the endlessly renewable vitality of the performers using costumes, projections, custom-made props, and puppetry, set to a rating starting from birdsong to Vivaldi.

One among Pendleton’s favorites is “Marigold,” carried out by 5 feminine dancers, wearing a number of tutus dyed orange to make them appear like giant bulbous marigolds. 

“That’s from the bigger manufacturing of ‘Botanica’ about gardens and vegetation, and that is one flower we exhibit within the type of a five-minute dance piece,” he stated. “You see the picture of a flower that’s shifting, so it’s Disneyesque that method, and the ladies undergo a sequence of metamorphosis because the costume’s fluffy marigolds float from the highest to backside. It’s fairly whimsical and magical.” 

Then audiences will journey down probably the most notorious rabbit gap in literature, when MOMIX dancers carry out “Alice,” a brand new work impressed by the kids’s traditional, “Alice in Wonderland.” As Alice’s physique grows and shrinks and grows once more, Pendleton’s dancers prolong themselves by way of props, ropes, and different dancers.

“Typically you discover an thought and also you would possibly discover a chapter to see the way it feels, and this can be a method for us to strive one thing new,” Pendleton stated. “We’re hoping to carry your complete manufacturing to George Mason subsequent time we come to city.” 

One other work within the present is “Opus Cactus,” the place Pendleton brings the panorama of the American Southwest to life along with his signature illusionistic type creating dynamic photos of cactuses, slithering lizards, and fireplace dancers.

The present additionally consists of “Lunar Sea,” which includes the usage of illusionistic costumes, ingenious lighting results, and gravity-defying bodily imagery that leads to transportation to locations by no means imagined. 

MOMIX won’t stop to amaze, impress and encourage.

“The shock is half the enjoyable,” Pendleton stated. “The viewers does get pleasure from making an attempt to determine what it’s they’re .” 

For extra data, go to cfa.calendar.gmu.edu/momix.