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Center for the Arts Hosts Dance Company, Pilobolus
Like its biological namesake—a feisty little fungus that thrives in farmyards—Pilobolus continues to grow toward the light, expanding and refining its unique methods of collective creativity. Now in its 41st year, the popular dance company will perform its inventive, athletic, witty, and collaborative works on the stage of Smothers Theatre, Malibu, on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 8 p.m.
The company's seven dancers will perform Azimuth, The Transformation, Symbiosis, All Is Not Lost, and Automaton.
Azimuth (2012) is Pilobolus' collaboration with the MacArthur "Genius" Award-winning master juggler Michael Moschen that turns the act of juggling on its side. Through Pilobolus' defiance of gravity and Moschen's investigation of the geometries of the universe and humans' place within them, balls float and roll as if in an inter-species harmony between dancers and the celestial machine.
The Transformation (2009) is a shadow piece in which a young woman is transformed. It was created in collaboration with Steven Banks, the lead writer for the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants.
Symbiosis (2001) is a male-female duet that traces the birth of a relationship between two creatures sinuously and sensuously intertwined. At once a Darwinian investigation and a love story, Symbiosis never ceases to surprise with its majesty and emotional depth.
All Is Not Lost (2011) is the live companion to Pilobolus' video collaboration with the Grammy-winning band OK Go. Playing with multiple perspectives, gravity, and dimensionality, the piece changes the way we look at dance through a kaleidoscopic view of human connection.
Automaton (2012) is a new collaboration with the internationally renowned choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. The result is a cyborg of a dance that questions the difference between human and machine. Somewhere between Tron and Blade Runner, Automaton takes place in a mirrored world that allows us to view multiple angles at the same time. Deep emotions punctuate the intoxicating rhythms of the machine as we experience a journey through a time that seems yet to come.
Founded in 1971 and based in Washington Depot, Connecticut, Pilobolus is a modern performance company that wears its revolutionary stripes on its sleeves. In keeping with its fundamentally collective creative process, Pilobolus Dance Theatre curates and convenes groups of diverse artists to make inventive, athletic, witty, and collaborative performance works on stage and screen using the human body as a medium for expression.
Pilobolus makes art to build community. The Pilobolus Institute teaches its group-based creative process to performers and non-dancers alike through popular, unique educational projects and programs, while the Pilobolus Creative Services apply its method of creative invention to a wide range of movement services for film, advertising, publishing, commercial clients, and corporate events.
The dance theatre performs for stage, television, and online audiences all over the world. The company has appeared late at night on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, early in the morning on Sesame Street, and in primetime as a feature on CBS' 60 Minutes.
Pilobolus has performed live shows in 64 countries and received a number of prestigious honors, including the Berlin Critics Prize, the Scotsman Award, the Brandeis Award, a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in cultural programming, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in choreography, and a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Fellowship for performing a TED Talk in 2005.
Tickets, priced at $50, $40, and $30 for the public and $10 for full-time Pepperdine students, are available now by calling (310) 506-4522. Tickets are also available through Ticketmaster at (800) 982-2787.
For more information, visit the Center for the Arts website or the Pilobolus website.
