ARTS
Page 8
Friday, July 13, 1984
The Michigan Daily
Piobolus: a festival on feet
By Jeff Frooman
F UNNY. Weird. These two words
best describe Pilobolus' perfor-
mance last Monday night at Power
Center.
Pilobolus is a modern dance troupe
that is in a class all its own. The troupe
has four men and two women, and these
six dancers are as much gymnasts,
contortionists, and clowns as they are
dancers.
Throughout much of their perfor-
mance the performers are paired or
tripled, and by intertwining arms and
legs they dance as multi-peopled units.
For those who have never seen
Pilobolus, an analogy - though not a
very good one - might be the six-
armed Buddha statues seen in Indian
art. The figures in Pilobolus, however
are full of life as they zanily cavort
across the stage.
But was the performance more than
just pure entertainment? At the end of
the show I found myself asking "What
does it all mean?" and "What's the
message?"
I don't believe Pilobolus has a
message. At least not one intended to be
expressed in words. Pilobolus is not
meant to be analyzed on a rational/in-
tellectual level. Rather, it's meant to be
felt - to be experienced - on an
emotional level. Pilobolus reaches
down into you and touches chords inside
of you. It generates emotions -
emotions without thought.
When they look funny, the audience is
turned on. When they look grotesque,
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the audience is turned off. There are not
reasons - it's just a feeling. Pilobolus
returns its audience to childhood - to a
time when emotions came naturally,
without being inhibited by conscious
rationalization and thought.
And that's why it's hard - indeed a
mistake - to try to categorize their
style of dance. Labelling their dance
style would take more away from un-
derstanding them than it would con-
tribute to that cause. If you managed to
identify and label one facet of their per-
formance style it would come at the ex-
pense of ignoring or down-playing all
the other facets. You would be peering
in through only one face of a multi-
faced crystal.
Fortunately, Pilobolus was so suc-
cessful in involving the audience in the
dancing that few in the audience were
searching for meaning during the
performance. It wasn't the type of per-
formance where you could just sit back
in your seat and loftily look down onto
the dancers. Rather, the dancers drew
you into them and made you a part of
their performance.
There are several reasons why
Pilobolus was successful in involving
the audience in the dancing. Foremost
was the originality and humor in the
dancers' movements. Pilobolus showed
the human body moving in new ways . .
. with new life and with new humor.
Secondly, the performance was like a
three-ringed circus at times. Pairs of
dancers, each moving differently but
simultaneously, didn't permit the show
to drag for even a moment.
The lack of scenery and the simple
costumes also helped the audience
focus its energies on the dancers and
become part of their dancing. In the first
act the troupe wore plain jumpsuits
that looked like a second layer of skins.
The unadorned costumes didn't distract
attention from the dancers, and instead
focused it on them.
In the third act the costumes were
even more simple - the entire cast
came out wearing nothing but athletic
supporters. Whether these outfits were-
less distracting than the jumpsuits is a
matter of opinion. Some people in the
audience seemed offended by the lack
of modesty. So for these members the
athletic supporters may have lessened
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CAROL L. FRANCAVILLA/Daily
The Piilobolus dance troupe out on a show filled with acrobatic and comic
flair Monday and Tuesday nights at the Power Center.
the effectiveness of the performance. and joined the rest of the audience as
The costumes were more elaborate they leapt to their feet to wildly ap-
in the middle act. In this act the dan- plaude Pilobolus.
cers wore robes and wide-brimmed Next year the Summer Festival
hats. But the costumes weren't just for organizers had better schedule
looks - they were an integral part of Pilobolus for Crisler arena, because all
the dance. They focused attention on of us who saw them this year will want
the dancers as much as the jumpsuits to see them again so there probably
had in the first act. won't be much room left for anyone
At the end of the performance I stuf- else.
fed my pen and notes between my teeth
Local star show is
down right heavenly
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PREPARATION SPECIALISTS SINCE 1938 ANN ARBOR, MI 48104
By Jeff Frooman
Being a big city boy I thought I'd seen
it all. I was convinced that Chicago's
planetarium was the ultimate. Not so.
The Exhibit Museum's Planetarium
Theater puts on a pretty mean little sky
show.
This summer's show, Dark Skies
Over Michigan is educational, enter-
taining and very practical.
It's educational because it teaches
you something about astronomy. You'll
learn facts about the sun, the moon, the
planets, and the stars. And they're not
just dumb facts-you know, the type of
trivia facts that were designed to im-
press people at cocktail par-
ties-rather, they're facts that really
give you a better feel for the universe
around you.
It's entertaining for two reasons. Fir-
st, the show was produced for the
general public, not for a bunch of
astronomy majors. Therefore, the show
in intelligible. It uses non-technical
language to answer many of the
questions you've probably had about
space. Secondly, it's different-really
different. There's nothing quite like
star gazing from dawn to dusk in the
comfort of a soft chair in the
planetarium-especially since there
are no mosquitoes, no trees, no city
lights, and no clouds to spoil the magic
of the moment.
It's practical in the sense that Dark
Skies Over Michigan focuses on what
you might see if you stepped into your
backyard one clear night this week. In
fact, that's probably what you'll find
yourself doing-going into your
backyard to identify the North Star, the
planet Jupiter, and the constellation
Sagittarius-just as they appeared on
the domed ceiling of the planetarium.
And to help you with your backyard ad-
venture, you can pick up a fact sheet
from the Planetarium Theater called
"Astronomical Events-July, 1984."
This sheet includes a map of the Ann
Arbor sky, which will help you orient
the heavens to your backyard.
When you first walk into the
Panetarium you'll probably notice
three things immediately. The first is
that the room is rather small. It is about
eighteen feet in diameter and seats only
50. In fact, the Exhibit Museum's
See STAR, Page 9
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