From the NYT:
The cause was complications of a stem cell transplant Mr. Wolken underwent in April, his wife, JoAnne Torti, said. He had been ill with myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disease, for some time.
Founded in 1971 by Mr. Wolken and Moses Pendleton, classmates at Dartmouth whose combined dance experience was practically nil, Pilobolus was beyond category from the first. The troupe, which by the mid-’70s included four men and two women, was known for its antic visual wit; unbridled, even slapstick athleticism; and periodic lack of clothing.
Here’s one of their commercials:
And a slice from one of their theater performances:
Pilobolus divided critics by folding together choreography, circus-style acrobatics, and gymnastics to make crowd-pleasing spectacles. But their movements and images have a core of playful surrealism that addresses the brain, not just the eyes (even if they occasionally drift into dreadful whimsy).
Last weekend, the dancers from Can Can Cabaret reminded me of Pilobolus by tearing it up at the Northwest New Works festival with a crowd-pleasing spectacle that was both smart and entertaining—not always easy to come by in the modern dance world. Can Can looks like a burlesque club and secretly tricks people into watching modern dance weekend after weekend; now they’re making moves on the Official Modern Dance world. Their performance at NWNW was in the Pilobolus family tree—athletic, playful, occasionally arch, narrative—and made some of the more respected, veteran choreographers at the festival look like solipsistic old relics.
Wolken may have died, but his legacy has a long future.
You might want to check the spelling of the dance troupe in your header.
Yeah Brendan…misspelling the name of the dance company isn’t going to win you any more fans in the dance world.
Fixed, thanks.
Whoah… narrative? Blasphemy! Modern dance, like its sibling performance art, can only properly be judged by how effectively it confounds a viewer’s attempts to understand what the hell is going on.