Acclaimed Dance Company Pilobolus comes to UW’s Meany Hall

Pilobolus in a scene from All is Not Lost (photo Nadirah Zakariya)

Pilobolus Dance Company makes an appearance in Seattle May 14-16! Named after a barnyard fungus that propels its spores with extraordinary speed, accuracy, and strength, Pilobolus returns for their eighth appearance on the UW World Series. Pilobolus’ singular style seems to be one of the most playful of major dance companies in the world. Tickets here!

The unique company has been featured on Oprah, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and the 2007 Academy Awards, and was nominated for a 2012 Grammy Award for OK Go’s music video, All Is Not Lost. Pilobolus holds the 2011 Guinness World Record for fitting the most people into a Mini Cooper (26)!

Founded by a group of Dartmouth College students in 1971, Pilobolus Dance Theater has toured its 115 pieces of repertory to more than 64 countries over the last 42 years. Videos are abundant on You Tube, where you can see some of their huge costumed pieces and inventive physical play. Just looking at this search link, you can see the visual images that dancers’ bodies form in so many of their pieces.

The program they will be performing will include All is Not Lost, along with On The Nature Of Things, Automaton, The Inconsistent Pedaler, and Sweet Purgatory.

On the Nature of Things is performed by three dancers balanced on a two-foot wide column rising above the stage. It’s meant to explore the birth of desire and the intertwined connection to shame and revenge.

Automaton is a cyborg of a dance that questions the difference between human and machine. It takes place in a mirrored world that allows us to view multiple angles at the same time.

The Inconsistent Pedaler is a surrealist fable about a girl who rides a bicycle that has the power to speed up and slow down time. And Sweet Purgatory, commissioned for Pilobolus’ 20th anniversary, explores sequentially a hovering premonitory world, its descent into Hades, the determined climb back toward Purgatory, and finally, out of an ominous post-apocalyptic surroundings toward Hope.

Another aspect of their time in Seattle is a community involvement they call Pilobolus @ Play. You can go to workshops at several local centers where a duo of dancers will teach creative movement for free! You don’t have to have a dance background to participate!

In these workshops, the artists expose participants to Pilobolus’ style of improvisation and movement creation through partnering, collaborative choreography and peer-to-peer feedback. The workshops will be for kids and adults. All attendees (go to the above link to find out how to register for each location) will also get a Free Ticket to the 2pm Saturday performance at Meany Hall!

Specifically: Tuesday, May 12, 4:00-5:15pm – Bitter Lake Community Center and Friday, May 15, 4:00-6:00pm, for middle and high school students. Wednesday, May 13, 3:30-4:30pm – South Park Senior Center and Thursday, May 14, 1:30-2:30pm – Wallingford Senior Center, for adults. Saturday, May 16 10:00-11:15am (all ages beginning class) and 11:30am-12:45pm (intermediate ages 15 and up) – Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.