A black and white photograph of a guy balancing each foot on a pipe and a bench on his back may be found in the Pilobolus archives. At the 50th anniversary celebration event recently at The Sharon, the dance company pulled that picture from the 1980 work “Solo from the Empty Suitor” and other iconic dances back to life. Since 1971, the business has developed over 120 works, visited over 65 countries, and partnered with a variety of organizations. “Big Five-Oh!” included pieces from five decades with a 2021 twist.
Dancers were transformed into thrashing, energized machines in 2004’s explosive “Megawatt.” They demonstrated their control of gravity with flips and near-horizontal leans in between the frantic action. The music of Primus, Radiohead and Squarepusher pumped things up even further.
With “Solo from the Empty Suitor,” the group showed off its lighter side. Paul Liu, dressed in a suit, demonstrated his balance abilities by dancing over a row of pipes on the stage.
In “Behind The Shadows” (2021) the business used a spotlight and a screen to tell a tale using shadows. The dancers merged into an elephant, a seahorse and a rat.
It also drew inspiration from earlier works, such as 1978’s “Shizen” Quincy Ellis and Hannah Klinkman arose slowly from the ground, their bodies contorting to create strange patterns. This, paired with Riley Lee’s shakuhachi music, gave the impression of seeing the first life on Earth.
“I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was unique, and it had a sense of primitivism,” said Rosemary Karpovich, a resident of the Village of Tamarind Grove who saw Pilobolus perform in the 1970s. “It held true to that primitive style of dance which you don’t get to see very often anymore.”
“I didn’t want it to end,” Village of Charlotte resident Maureen Golden said. “It transported my world. It was like I wasn’t in The Sharon, like I was in a forest. It was just captivating.”
