Cow inspires MOMIX director’s
imaginative leap in Lunar Sea
By Jennifer Pencek
MOMIX is known for its ability to conjure a world of surrealistic images using props, light, shadow, humor, and the human body. But do you know the real story behind its name? No, it’s not named after some god of dance. Even better? MOMIX takes its name from a milk supplement for veal calves. Yes, veal calves.
Artistic Director Moses Pendleton grew up on a dairy farm in northern Vermont where his dream wasn’t to grace the world’s stages but to create the perfect Holstein-Friesian cow. Years later, he became a skier, broke his leg, took a dance class, and the rest is history. But Pendleton hasn’t forgotten his first love—agriculture.
“You don’t deny your past, so there’s a bit of a MOMIX dairy farm boy and the skier becoming involved in the arts,” Pendleton says by phone from his home in Washington, Connecticut. “There’s an agri link in MOMIX.”
The self-proclaimed farm boy brings his company of dancer-illusionists to Eisenhower Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 26. The program, Lunar Sea, was inspired when Pendleton was sketching on his porch. What was he sketching? You guessed it. A cow.
“I was just doodling a large black-and-white Holstein-Friesian cow on yellow-lined paper,” he says. “I had this little game going. If I had ten dancers, how could I make it look like a cow out of dancers? Then I started experimenting a little with that, and we began to play with having parts of the human body disappear. … It creates an impression you’re witnessing a ballet on the moon. That’s Lunar Sea. It does free the mind, and hopefully it’s an imaginative voyage.”
Lunar Sea includes two parts—“Sea of Tranquility,” co-commissioned by the Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet and the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts in Torrington, Connecticut, and “Bay of Seething.”
Pendleton has been one of America’s most innovative and widely performed choreographers and directors for more than thirty years. A founding member of the groundbreaking Pilobolus Dance Theatre in 1971, he formed MOMIX in the early 1980s and has been its artistic director since 1984. He has also worked extensively in film, television, and opera, and as a choreographer for ballet companies and special events.
An avid and original photographer, Pendleton has exhibited his work in London, Milan, Montreal, and Aspen. Numerous gardening books and magazine articles have featured images of the extensive annual sunflower plantings at his home. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1977. He received the Connecticut Commission on the Arts Governor’s Award in 1998 and the Positano Choreographic Award in 1999. In 2002, he received the American Choreography Award for his contributions to choreography for film and television.
Cows, skiing, choreography, photography, and sunflowers—the topics may seem unrelated. But for a man who wants to create more than anything, no matter what those creations are, perhaps the themes aren’t so far-fetched.
When he describes Lunar Sea, Pendleton doesn’t talk about specific choreographic steps. He’s more interested in movement and what movement creates.
“I’m not just creating choreography,” he says of Lunar Sea. “I’m creating illusions. It’s like a three-dimensional painting about some fantasy on the moon. It really is a magic evening, and I think it will be loads of fun for people to see.”
Elisha Clark Halpin, assistant professor of dance and head of the dance program at Penn State, enjoys the reactionary elements of MOMIX.
“I appreciate the use of theatricality and spectacle that MOMIX brings to the stage,” she says. “Being a post-modern choreographer, spectacle is not foremost on my mind, so I enjoy seeing work that differs from what I do.”
Dance audiences, she says, don’t always want to be challenged or have to think hard about what they’re seeing.
“In an effort to be inclusive, we forgot that it is okay to be uncomfortable, to feel affronted, to react, or respond to work,” she says. “That being said, I do think that MOMIX’s work is very accessible and even exciting for the audience. The conceptual and technical innovations create a wow factor that allows for non-traditional dancegoers who like theatre to be drawn in.”
For Halpin, the transformative nature of dance—the ability to be whatever the artist dreams it to be—keeps her love of dance alive.
“Moses and his fellow dancers transformed how the body is viewed and seen with the founding of Pilobolus,” she says. “Some people think that the shape-oriented theatrics may lack in expression and emotion, but I feel that we see a different part of humanity in this type of work. By not expressing the ‘humanness’ of the body, we are able to see ourselves—our vulnerabilities, limitations, abilities, etc.—in a more abstract way. … Through the use of content, spectacle, props, and technical innovations, MOMIX opens a door to viewers who may not otherwise be interested in viewing dance.”
Audio description, which is especially helpful to patrons with sight loss, is available for this performance at no extra charge to ticket holders.
Artistic Viewpoints, an informal moderated discussion featuring a visiting artist or local expert, is offered in Eisenhower Auditorium one hour before the performance and is free for ticket holders. Artistic Viewpoints regularly fills to capacity. Seating is available on a first-arrival basis.
MOMIX
Lunar Sea
7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 26
Eisenhower Auditorium
Adult $35
University Park Student $15
18 and Younger $26
The Penn State International Dance Ensemble Endowment underwrites dance presentations at the Center for the Performing Arts.
