Every day is opening night.

Pilobolus Unveils Behind-the-scenes Featurette on the Making of “Azimuth”

 

Contact for Pilobolus:
                          Rick Miramontez / Andy Snyder
rick@oandmco.com / andy@oandmco.com

Contact for Pilobolus’s 2012 Joyce Theater Season:
Richard Kornberg / Billy Zavelson
richard@kornbergpr.com / billy@kornbergpr.com

 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE


PILOBOLUS UNVEILS BEHIND-THE-SCENES FEATURETTE ON THE MAKING OF 
“ A Z I M U T H ” 
AHEAD OF ITS NEW YORK PREMIERE TONIGHT

AS PART OF PILOBOLUS’S 2012 JOYCE THEATER ENGAGEMENT 

ALL-NEW PIECE CREATED WITH
WORLD-RENOWNED MASTER JUGGLER
MICHAEL MOSCHEN
UNDER PILOBOLUS’S INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATORS PROJECT

 

PILOBOLUS’S 2012 JOYCE THEATER SEASON IS IN PERFORMANCES NOW


New York (7/16/2012) – The groundbreaking and internationally acclaimed dance company Pilobolus today unveiled a behind-the-scenes video of its new work, Aziumth.  The piece will have its New York premiere tonight as part of Pilobolus’s 2012 Joyce Theater engagement, which began performances on Monday, July 16, and runs through August 11.  Tonight will mark the first performance of the engagement’s Program B, which features Azimuth.

A product of Pilobolus’s International Collaborators Project, which curates and convenes multi-disciplinary artists to choreograph using Pilobolus’s creative method with the company’s directors and dancers, Azimuth represents a unique collaboration with MacArthur “Genius” Award-winning master juggler Michael Moschen.  The piece turns the act of juggling on its side. Uniting the underlying spirit of Pilobolus’s work—support, humanity, connection—with his own fascination with the emotional and physical properties that govern human interaction, Moschen investigates the geometries of the universe through objects that roll in harmony with the dancers and the celestial machine. Azimuth, an astrology term referring to the arc of the horizon, was choreographed by Pilobolus’s Renee Jaworski and Michael Tracy, along with Moschen.

To view the behind-the-scenes video, please visit: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvMwwMC2h_g

Embed code:
<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/DvMwwMC2h_g” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

“I never have had an experience that felt so much like I was in my own studio working.  We started almost reversing roles; I started moving people around and they starting creating new languages with the objects. And when that happens, that’s when you know you’ve got it,” said Moschen.

“When we entered the studio with Michael we were prepared to work with a master juggler.  What we did not anticipate is that our fundamental principals would be so aligned. Through his profound understanding of the laws of nature, Michael can make objects express poetry and illusion. We strive to do the same with our bodies; it was the truest sense of mutual discovery,” said Itamar Kubovy, Pilobolus Executive Director.

In 2007, to expand its collaborative practices, Pilobolus launched the International Collaborators Project, a series of collective choreographic projects with multi-disciplinary artists, such as writer and illustrator, Maurice Sendak; the Israeli choreographic team, Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak; the remarkable American puppeteer, Basil Twist; Pulitzer Prize-winner, comic artist Art Spiegelman; the Grammy-winning American composer and musician Dan Zanes; the band OK Go; the MIT Distributed Robotics Laboratory directed by Professor Daniela Rus; the Japanese butoh choreographer Takuya Muramatsu; the radio program Radiolab; and the Belgian-Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. The interactive video that Pilobolus created with OK Go and Google, “All Is Not Lost”, was nominated for a 2012 Grammy Award.

Biographies________________________________________________________________

Michael Moschen is a juggler. He has created unique objects and manipulation techniques for Performance Theater for thirty years. Utilizing his self- taught ‘creative process’ he questions and explores what it is to be human. Presently, he is completing a self-imposed challenge to create, from scratch, progressive physical skills and simple objects that celebrate each individual person’s ability to learn and share simple mathematics, music and physics. Moschen is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. He wishes to express his heartfelt appreciation and admiration to the Pilobolus dancers, co-creators and staff!

Pilobolus is a modern performance company, founded in 1971, that to this day wears its revolutionary stripes on its sleeves. In keeping with its fundamentally collective creative process, Pilobolus Dance Theatre now curates and convenes groups of diverse artists— including the MIT Distributed Robotics Laboratory, Art Spiegelman, OK Go, Radiolab, and many others—to make inventive, athletic, witty, collaborative performance works on stage and screen using the human body as a medium for expression. Pilobolus makes art to build community. It teaches its group-based creative process to performers and non-dancers alike through popular, unique educational projects and programs. This collection of activities is called the Pilobolus Institute. Pilobolus also applies its method of creative invention to a wide range of movement services for film, advertising, publishing, commercial clients, and corporate events. This division is called Pilobolus Creative Services. The 2012 season marks Pilobolus’s 41st year. In keeping with the energy and spirit of its biological namesake—a phototropic fungus that thrives in farmyards—the company has continued to grow toward the light, expanding and refining its unique methods of collective creative production to assemble a repertoire of over 100 choreographic works. While it has become a stable and influential force in the world of dance, Pilobolus remains as protean as ever, looking forward to the next 40 years of collaborating on the future.

The Joyce Theater Foundation, a non-profit organization, has proudly served the dance community and its audiences for three decades. Under the direction of founders Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, Ballet Tech Foundation, Inc. acquired and The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea.  Opening as The Joyce Theater is 1982, it was named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther’s clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. One of the only theaters built by dancers for dance, The Joyce Theater has provided an intimate and elegant home for more than 320 domestic and international companies. The Joyce has also commissioned more than 130 new dances since 1992. In 1996, The Joyce created Joyce SoHo, a dance center providing highly subsidized rehearsal and performance space to hundreds of dance artists, as well as special residency opportunities for selected choreographers to support the creation of new work. In 2009, The Joyce opened Dance Art New York (DANY) Studios to provide affordable studios for rehearsals, auditions, classes, and workshops for independent choreographers, non-profit dance companies, and the dance/theater communities. New York City public school students and teachers annually benefit from The Joyce’s Dance Education Program, and adult audiences get closer to dance through informative Dance Talks, Joyce Pre-Show gatherings, and post-performance Dance Chat discussions. The Joyce Theater now features an annual season of approximately 48 weeks with over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 135,000.

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