Pilobolus Promises Mind-Bending Dance Experience

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

October 5 , 2006

 
Pilobolus is a sun-loving fungus that can throw its spores nearly eight feet.  Pilobolus Dance Theatre is a highly-unusual dance company now celebrating its 34th year.   The organism of the arts variety germinated in a Dartmouth College dance class, emerging as a young company with a collaborative choreographic process and unique weight-sharing approach to partnering. 

Today, Pilobolus is a major American dance company of international influence whose mind-bending sculptural poses grace not only performance halls but books and calendars.  The Paramount Theater will host this singular company on Tuesday, October 17 at 8 pm for a dance concert of more recent repertory including the works Aquatica (2005), Symbiosis (2001), Momento Mori (2006), and Megawatt (2004).  This event is sponsored in part by ACAC Fitness and Wellness Centers.

Pilobolus lives and works in Washington Depot, Connecticut, and performs for stage and television audiences all over the world.  The company continues their deep commitment to collaborative work, with four artistic directors and six dancers contributing to one of the most popular and varied repertoires in the field.  Pilobolus creates and performs a seemingly-impossible physical and acrobatic style of dance that calls to mind visions of performers like Cirque du Soleil -- and did so long before such artists came to prominence.   As stated by the Philadelphia Daily News, “their virtually indescribable sculptural tableaux forged a new dance genre.” 

Pilobolus' works have appeared in the repertoires of other major dance companies including the Joffrey Ballet, Feld Ballet, Ohio Ballet, Ballet Arizona, and Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet in the United States, the Ballet National de Nancy et de Lorraine and the Ballet du Rhin in France, and Italy's Verona Ballet, among others. 

The company has received several prestigious honors, among them the Berlin Critic's Prize, the Brandeis Award, the New England Theatre Conference Prize, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts Award for Excellence and, in 1997, a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in cultural programming. In June 2000 Pilobolus received the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement in choreography.

Pilobolus’ impact has definitely not been limited to the stage.  Another arm of the company's choreographic activity, Pilobolus Creative Services, has made television commercials for companies such as Mobil, Toyota, Bloomingdale's, and General Motors.  Pilobolus choreographed for and performed in Brian Boitano's Skating Spectacular on NBC, was commissioned and performed at the 2002 Summer Olympics in Salt Lake City, and has completed a collaboration with the Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall as well as a commission from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.  The books Twisted Yoga and The Human Alphabet features photography of signature Pilobolus poses.

As Pilobolus Dance Theatre moves boldly through its third decade of existence, it has continued to grow, creating new works, becoming a stable and influential force in the world of dance -- yet remaining as changeable and surprising as ever.  Seats for the October 17 concert are $64, $59, $56, and $53.  Tickets and further details are available online, or through The Paramount's Box Office at 434.979.1333.

For more information about the company, please visit www.pilobolus.com.