Music-Dance Group’s Maiden Effort Will Premiere in S.D.

San Diego has become a regular stop on the touring trail for some of the leading dance companies in the world, including the renegades of modern dance known as MOMIX.

But Thursday night’s concert at Symphony Hall breaks new ground for the loose-limbed zanies of MOMIX--and for San Diego as well. It marks the world premiere of a collaborative performance between MOMIX, an innovative Pilobolus offshoot, and its brand-new jazz-based musical sidekick, SHADOWFAX.

Occasionally, an imported troupe will test the waters for a new dance in San Diego, but getting the jump on the rest of the country with a whole new act is something else. Nevertheless, MOMIX and SHADOWFAX decided to kick off their maiden effort right here. Why did they choose San Diego for their premiere performance?

“I don’t know, I guess you’re just the lucky ones,” said SHADOWFAX lead musician Chuck Greenberg during a break in rehearsals last week. “The band started on the West Coast, and L.A. is home to most of us.”

Although dancers and musicians have teamed up for concerts many times before, Greenberg says this arrangement goes beyond the normal limits of dance-music collaboration.

“This is a lot different. MOMIX does some pretty wild things,” he said, “and it’s going to be a powerful music and visual image. The dancers and musicians will be integrated with the use of lighting and scrims. We’re still experimenting with the staging, because we’re really making our own way. There are no signposts that say you should do this or you shouldn’t do that.”

Mum’s the word on just what will take place between the two groups. All Greenberg would acknowledge is that “the music and dance won’t be just two separate things. Their style of dance and our style of music are very compatible, and they’ll be thoroughly integrated.”

Moses Pendleton, founding member of MOMIX, was no less vague about the fusion, but said, “There’s a lot of potential there. It’s full of surprises and great music. Even some of the things we’ve done before with our own music, like the dance with a giant clam shell, will look a lot different here with SHADOWFAX. It might offend purists, but it should appeal to rock enthusiasts.”

A five-minute video designed as a teaser for the concert shows an energetic mix of bodies bending and swaying to the cool jazzy sonics and gyrating moves of SHADOWFAX. But, with its dissolves, multiple imaging and other technical film-making razzle-dazzle, it seems more a conventional music video than a representative preview of whatever the live stage hybrid has in store.

The 39-year-old Pendleton dropped out of dancing a few years ago, but he will be back this week, dancing a duet with his wife, Cynthia Quinn, and will perform in four other pieces. Their 2-year-old daughter, who made her stage debut in her father’s arms when she was an infant, will make a cameo appearance as well.

Several years ago, the MOMIX dancers discovered that the music of SHADOWFAX was right in tune with their own artistic visions, and they began to use scores by the group in a few of their dances. When the two groups finally met about three years ago, for a movie project that never got off the ground, they quickly established a rapport and agreed to team up for a concert tour as soon as scheduling conflicts could be resolved.

“We had always been interested in other types of media,” Greenberg said. “Mime, music and dance are very compatible, and we believe the future for performance is in working with other types of artists. MOMIX had already done three or four pieces with our music, so we said, why use taped music when we can work together?”

“One of the reasons we agreed to it,” added Pendleton, “is that we would be bridging into other worlds. We can make that jump more easily to rock audiences than a group like Cunningham. We’ve always been popular with young audiences.”

The result of this novel arrangement is that SHADOWFAX musicians will share the stage in a performance that is as integral to the dancing as the music. Then, in a music-only part of the program, the musicians will take center stage to dish out some of the cross-cultural sounds that have distinguished the group for more than 10 years.

About 150 ethnic instruments from around the world create the unusual assortment of jazz, light rock, acoustic, classical and folk music motifs that characterize SHADOWFAX. Everything from the talking drums and sun piano of Africa, to the lyricon (an electronic wind instrument with a synthesized horn that Greenberg co-invented with some Chicago engineers) will be called into play during this debut concert.

As anyone who has seen MOMIX knows, the six-person ensemble uses gymnastic contortions, silly-putty moves, illusions, sight gags, vaudeville-style execution and a liberal sprinkling of offbeat humor to confound its audiences.

MOMIX’s mixed-bag of dances includes a gravity-defying duet danced on skis, a macabre work once described as “an ever-changing Rorschach test,” and a dangerous solo that wraps the dancer around a circular metal sculpture as it spins wildly across the stage.

“The show will still be evolving when we open in San Diego,” said Pendleton. “It will probably still be changing by the time we get to Chicago (the sixth stop on their 10-city tour). It’s all very new, and we’re still learning.”