Making their Australian debut and exclusive to Adelaide, the renowned American Dance company Pilobolus, presented an exciting program of five works that encompasses their 38 years of performing.The ensemble of four males and two females display their amazing physical and artistic dexterity that not only mesmerizes the individual through a combination of athleticism and humour, but makes one forget how demanding their choreography really is.
Opening with the full ensemble in Aquatica (2005), we are presented with an exotic marine life fairy tale to probe the depths of the human psyche. Full of leaps and amazing forms, Aquatica is set to Marcelo Zarvos’s playful score.
In a change of pace and drawing inspiration from a bustling tumbleweed, Jun Kuribayashi performs a tumbling solo with contortionistic skill set to an all-percussion score in Pseudopodia (1973).
Completing the first half, Gnomen (1997) is a ninteractive exploration for four male dancers. Andrew Herro, Jun Kuribayashi, Manelich Minniefee and Edwin Olvera roll slowly onto the stage, offering a lyrically reverent work full of male sensuality that exercises unusually inventive and physical sculptural poses.
The second half of the program opens with Jenny Mendez and Manelich Minniefee in Symbiosis (2001), a duet which traces the birth of a relationship between two creatures that is sinuously and sensuously intertwined.
Set to a soundtrack from Brian Eno and Talking Heads, a modestly attired ensemble returns for the final work of the night in Day Two (1980). Enacting the second day of the creation of the world, this amazing work is tribally primitive in its formation, as the ensemble display an intense physical commitment to each other.
To only then emerge from under the tarquett, as if to take flight, as the dancers playfully slide across the flooded stage, splashing the audience and spouting water from their mouths.
Pilobolus set out to excite and amaze, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. Adelaide audiences were treated to an evening of intense and physical sensuality. One can only hope we will see Pilobolus again on these shores in the not so distant future.
Pilobolus
Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide
Tuesday 6 May – 8.00pm. Review by Rohan Shearn
Plays till 10 May. Bookings: BASS 131 246
Image: courtesy of Pilobolus
