SIX dancers, 12 chairs, video, music from Miles Davis to Arvo Part, and bingo! – dance history was made.
Dancers have come and gone during the 37 years Pilobolus has been around, but its choreography has always been provided by one of the company’s six founders. In recent years, that has meant the three surviving artistic directors: Bobby Barnett, Michael Tracy and Jonathan Wolken.
Until now. Monday night, the company gave the New York premiere of “Rushes,” with specially commissioned choreography by Israel’s Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak, along with Barnett.
Making dances is – though few admit it – a collaborative art, and Pilobolus has always recognized this by noting the creative contribution of the original cast, by listing their names after that of the actual choreographer, with the phrase, “in collaboration with . . . ”
For “Rushes,” no fewer than 12 past and present Pilobolus dancers lent a leg. But while the piece is recognizably in what you could call the School of Pilobolus, it’s also – with its zany wit and dark, surrealistic humor – what Monty Python would term “something completely different.”
There is no story as such, just six dancers – Jeffrey Huang, Renee Jaworski, Manelich Minniefee, Edwin Olvera, Annika Sheaff and the increasingly remarkable Andrew Herro – colliding into themselves and life.
They all reveal that frantic, manic desperation of people who have run out of time and are almost cheerily looking back in angst.
The rest of the program consisted of Pilobolus standards, “Aquatica,” “Pseudopodia,” last season’s fascinating Wolken duet “Memento Mori” telling of love in an old climate, and, the one pompous piece on the bill, “Sweet Purgatory.”
PILOBOLUSJoyce Theater, Eighth Avenue at 19th Street; (212) 242-0800. Season runs through Aug. 11.