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Jean Lenihan: dance and other movements

Pilobolus Gets a Grammy Nod

February 10, 2012 by Jean Lenihan

[This ran first on the LA Times’ Culture blog. And sadly, Adele’s Grammy sweep included a win in this category]

As the leadership team of Pilobolus Dance Theater readies itself to fly to Los Angeles for Sunday’s Grammy Awards -– the group is nominated for best short form music video for “All Is Not Lost” –- the dance troupe’s co-executive director Lily Binns is feeling “really, really nervous” (“we’re up against Adele!”) and quite celebratory about the way the troupe is expanding its artistic reach.

This is not the company’s first foray into music videos. Rather incongruously, Pilobolus dancers appeared as background elements in Marilyn Manson’s 1999 “The Beautiful People” video.

But this Grammy nod, shared with OK Go’s frontman Damian Kulash Jr. and his videographer/choreographer sister Trish Sie, was based on “truly a full collaboration for us,” Binns says. “We share a similiar sensibility with OK Go and Trish Sie,” she explains. “We all like making the impossible look possible.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur-y7oOto14]

For “All Is Not Lost,” Pilobolus and OK Go set up shop for five days in a small town hall near the dance troupe’s Connecticut base (“the Woodbury Town Hall didn’t know what hit it,” she says) and shot the dancers and musicians from beneath a large glass platform atop which they undertake vintage Pilobolus contortions and organize their bare standing feet to spell out Roman letters and Japanese Katakana syllabary.

Binns expects that the band and the dancers will collaborate again (“We felt this was a beginning of something likely to be larger”) and they did perform a surprise live stage version of “All Is Not Lost” at New York’s Joyce Theater in July 2011 with Kulash and the band.

Touring internationally this year, Pilobolus’ trip will include a stop at the Irvine Barclay Theatre (May 17-18). And Binns just revealed plans for the dancers to accompany the zany proto-science-philosophers from WNYC’s RadioLab radio show, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, on a U.S. tour called “RadioLab: In the Dark.” Hosted by Demitri Martin, and featuring Pilobolus’ “visual explanations” of scientific principles, the tour is scheduled to land at UCLA’s Royce Hall on May 8-10 (tickets not yet on sale). While you wait, you can check out the 3-D version of the “All Is Not Lost” video on the Nintendo DS platform.

Filed Under: choreography, contemporary dance Tagged With: Damian Kulash, OK Go, Pilobolus, Trish Sie

About Jean Lenihan

Formerly the staff dance critic for the Seattle Times, Jean Lenihan now lives in Los Angeles where she's written for the … [Read More...]

About Fresh Pencil

This blog began as an aggregation of published freelance pieces on a wide range of dance-makers and touring troupes, from Miss Prissy to ABT premieres to  Benjamin Millepied to Ryan Heffington. Nowadays I often review and write straight into this blog.

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