Moses Pendleton grew up on a Vermont dairy farm and exhibited Holsteins at county fairs as a youngster. MOMIX was a feed supplement Moses fed to his cows.
Pendleton appropriated the supplement’s name for the dance company he founded in 1980.
He founded MOMIX after almost a decade dancing with Pilobolus, the company he co-founded in 1971. Pilobolus, incidentally, also is the name of a fungi that grows on the dung of herbivores. Such as Holsteins.
Pendleton’s rural past looms large in his psyche. As does his rural present.
He’s still living in rural New England, just two states south in Connecticut. It’s a fantastic place for creative inspiration, Pendleton told masslive.com, especially if “you’re good at daydreaming.”
If there’s a dreamlike quality to MOMIX, it may be that what the audience sees before them defies reality. Or as Pendleton explains it on the MOMIX website, “I continue to be interested in using the human body to investigate non-human worlds.”
Pendleton’s says his rustic setting allows minds to go down “the rabbit hole of your own subconscious.” Pendleton took a dive into the rabbit hole that started it all, the one the title character followed in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
This led to the company’s most recent production, Alice, which MOMIX will perform on Sunday, March 17, in Carol Morsani Hall.
Pilobolus’ choreography created otherworldly images, exaggerated and contorted visions of human and non-human shapes. The performances were marked by the athleticism and flexibility of the dancers.
MOMIX requires a similar degree of physicality from dancers, and augments their performances with props, visuals and dramatic lighting effects. These additions are often used to create illusory affects, such as multiple images of dancers, adding an extra layer of surrealism to the already eye-popping visuals.
Alice, then, is nothing like a straight retelling of Carroll’s writing. Rather, the story provides a base from which Pendleton and MOMIX explore magic, illusion and transformation. Illusion in particular.
Pendleton refers to MOMIX performers as dancer-illusionists, and the skillful use of sleight-of-hand adds to the sense of “Did I really just see that” a MOMIX performance generates.
Pendleton refers to what MOMIX does as “physical visual theater” that “extends … the human body into the magical, the alchemical, the mystical, the imaginary world that we try to bring to life.”