Pilobolus

If you ever get a chance to see Pilobolus, the modern dance ensemble based out of Connecticut, do it! My girlfriend and I had a great time. It was one of those rare artsy shows where you don't want it to end. I enjoy artsy fartsy things, don't get me wrong...but generally, by the end of a lecture or a performance or a reading or whatever, I'm just ready to go home. I was actually disappointed when the show was over last night.

The movements these folks make with their bodies are totally bizarre and amazing. They use some kind of weight-transfer physics that they invented to accomplish some really crazy, gravity-defying positions.

The choreography is astonishing, too. The second section of the performance featured one man balancing on this tubes, but kind of artfully falling off of them all the time. The piece started with several men taking a bite out of an apple in a woman's mouth, and then either dying or becoming horribly incompetent. Lovely Garden of Eden imagery and then appropriate post-lapsarian madness with the ridiculous balancing act of the tubes. I can't imagine how they choreographed something so unpredictable as balancing on tubes...it was really charming.

The first section was pretty exciting as well. I think it was called "Aquatica." They did all these interesting things with gender...first these 4 men kept kind of chasing and squashing these 2 women, and then the 2 women tamed, mounted, worked with, berated, and mesmerized the men until they were all equals at the end.

Another piece, Memento Mori, featured a man and a woman who entered and exited the stage as very very old people, but they put on these hats that made them young again, or made them reminisce on their youth, which was rife with the typical things relationships are rife with: disappointment, passion, flirtation, silliness, tickling, and one bare butt.

That section, especially when the old people are holding hands and being sweet together, made me wonder if I'll get to be old and sweet with my husband. You just don't meet a sweet old couple with a heroin addict husband. You don't see a doddering old dopehead. I do, so very much, want to share my old age with him. There's no one I'd rather wipe my drool.