DANCE REVIEW : Momix, ISO Make L.A. Appearances

I n the beginning, there was Pilobolus.

And Pilobolus danced before the people and was a wonder among nations. And we saw that it was good, the work that they had made--verily, too good to last.

And Pilobolus begat Crowsnest which begat “The Garden of Earthly Delights” and “Vienna Lusthaus” (Broadway-style Pilobolus). And Pilobolus begat Momix also which begat ISO (pop-style Pilobolus).

These are the names of the generations of Pilobolus and they all danced before the people, every one. And, behold, it was now not so good--no, indeed--in fact, a real burnt offering sometimes....

Through providence or happenstance, Momix and ISO both appeared locally during the weekend: Momix at the Pantages Theatre on Friday (sharing a bill with the pop band Shadowfax), ISO on a largely familiar program at the Japan America Theatre on Saturday.

Each group performed pieces created by Daniel Ezralow, Jamey Hampton, Ashley Roland and Morleigh Steinberg before they left Momix last year to form ISO--plus new works revealing the same problematic reliance on hardware.

Where Pilobolus enriched concert dance through movement systems and disciplines borrowed (mostly) from competitive athletics, Momix/ISO often encumbers dance with the apparatus of special effects: skis, stilts, shadow-screens, rolling Jungle Gyms, flying illuminated tents, magnetic platforms and aerial harnesses. This is definitely conspicuous consumption, ‘80s style, and it masks an increasingly conservative outlook on both artistic form and content.

At the Pantages, for example, Momix used a gymnastic Pilobolean vocabulary and Shadowfax accompaniment to wring a little novelty from that decrepit staple of Las Vegas showmanship, the nearly nude adagio: a lush fantasy of male manipulation and female compliance.

Possibly aiming the performance at a post-literate audience, Momix/Shadowfax management supplied no house program on Friday--no titles of pieces, no composer or choreographer credits, no names of soloists--and could not be persuaded to yield this data to the working press.

But enough of Momix. Right now, its members are clearly just replacements for/reflections of the ISO Gang of Four--a collective that mounted its own splashy collaboration with a pop group (the Bobs) just five weeks ago at UCLA.

On Saturday, ISO reveled in its prowess, showed a lot of skin and played with its expensive new toys in one divertissement after another: business as usual, though there were signs of hope.

The Los Angeles premiere of “Foreign Tales” (music by Ravel, Debussy and Keith Jarrett) featured ribbed tents that were soon transformed into Roland’s and Steinberg’s formal hoop skirts. Ezralow and Hampton wore tail coats over nightshirts over tights, costumes that suggested antique Third World tourist functionaries--and their adoring but usually servile attitude toward the women evoked a number of potent social and political issues.

For these men, the hoop skirts served as symbols of power, even fetishes. The women skimmed the stage seated on these skirts, were swung in the air (the skirts ballooning out over their heads) and eventually sank out of sight into the skirts while the men vanished under descending tents.

Although it remained thematically undeveloped and was very roughly executed on Saturday, “Foreign Tales” at least displayed greater ambition than the equally exotic but largely decorative “Mr. Seawater’s Pool” (1986) on the same program. And it also outclassed ISO’s newest work, a trapeze act in grandiose metaphysical disguise titled “The Big Book.”

Accompanied by Bulgarian folk chants, this religioso charade contrasted the earthbound sufferings of bare-chested men with the seraphic hoverings and swoopings of women suspended from the ceiling on wires.

Even those sated by Momix and ISO gimmicks might find “The Big Book” sensational as a display of virtuosity (especially the opening solo for Ezralow). But accepting its greeting-card platitudes is another matter entirely.

Ezralow, Hampton, Roland and Steinberg are all hot stuff, and they can dance. They could probably ride a camel through the eye of a needle, but they can’t make us believe Peter Pan died for our sins. Somehow, a leap of faith just isn’t in their vocabulary.

“I Do,” “Scare Myself,” “Captain Tenacity” and “Helter-Skelter” (each previously reviewed on other local ISO or Momix programs) completed the performance. Taped music accompanied all the dances.