Arts
The inspiration for the dance theater Pilobolus -- which will perform tonight and tomorrow night in the Moore Theatre -- stemmed from a Dartmouth dance class in 1971.
The group -- which was named after a sun loving fungus that grows in barnyards and pastures -- started out as a men's quartet, wholly composed of Dartmouth men, and right away drew critical acclaim.
"It was rather unusual in those days to have four men as a company," Robby Barnett, one of the group's founding members, who is now one of its artistic directors, told The Dartmouth from the company's Connecticut headquarters.
From its beginnings, the group used a collaborative effort of its dancers and directors to create what they call "physical vocabularies."
When asked to place Pilobolus' work into a category like ballet or modern dance, Barnett said, "Pilobolus' work is not based on anything."
He explained that Pilobolus does not draw from traditions of "codified dance movement," but reached by a process of collective collaboration.
"We work together to generate our material," he emphasized.
Barnett said the group was self sufficient within a year, with its first performance in New York at the end of December in 1971.