Pilobolus’ ‘Aeros’ Keeps Its Dancers on the Move

Looking at Pilobolus Dance Theatre at Pepperdine University in Malibu on Friday, it was hard to connect this sleek, super-professional, much-loved ensemble with the experimental iconoclasts who got together 25 years ago to embody a very controversial postmodern agenda.

They weren’t alone, of course, but Pilobolus soon became the torchbearer and popular front for the radical idea that anything could be dance--any physical discipline, any system of motion. The idea went deeper than merely stealing a flashy ballet lift from gymnastics but involved using unorthodox vocabularies to create new kinds of dance imagery, new worlds of movement metaphor.

Purists (including certain prominent critics) vehemently objected, but a quarter-century later there’s no denying that the conceptual horizons of concert dance are infinitely greater thanks to Pilobolus, its offshoots (notably Momix, Crowsnest, ISO) and influence.

“Pseudopodia” from 1974 showed the Friday audience how far we’ve come. Originally a tumbling solo by and for the powerful Jonathan Wolken, it is now lighter, more lyrical and, of course, wholly feminine in the performance by Rebecca Anderson. With Wolken dancing, the movement evoked a tumbleweed in a desert storm; with Anderson, you think of a leaf or feather spun aloft in tradewinds.

Either way, this is a dance without steps, as is the Alison Chase and Moses Pendleton duet “Shizen” from 1978. But “Pseudopodia” offers constant, restless motion while “Shizen” concentrates on matched, slowly evolving body-sculpture in which the contours of the human anatomy seem to dissolve into abstraction in the half-light or suggest other realities.

Rebecca Jung and Mark Santillano prove especially adept at crablike walking and the scary insect-lift near the end, a reminder of Pilobolus’ pioneer exploration of vertical stage space--all that unused territory above dancers’ heads.

Despite its intimidating list of four choreographers and six collaborators, “The Doubling Cube” has a loose unity and an easygoing assurance befitting a company that, by 1995, had long since become a middle-of-the-road institution with nothing left to prove. Set to an appealing jazz score by Jane Ira Bloom, “Doubling Cube” uses game structures and plenty of humor to humanize displays of gymnastic prowess by the six-member cast.

Anderson stays prominent throughout--as target, as leader, as projectile soaring over her colleagues’ bodies and as counterforce to Santillano in one of the piece’s intimate duets. Nothing new here, but the sheer mastery remains impressive and all the casual same-sex partnerships supply another reminder of how far we’ve come.

Co-commissioned by Pepperdine in celebration of Pilobolus’ 25th birthday, the new “Aeros” could be considered shockingly retro in its reliance on plot and character--not to mention the sequined tutu that Anderson wears. But such surprises prove central to a whimsical fable concocted by original company members Robby Barnett, Michael Tracy, Chase and Wolken, in collaboration with the dancers.

With Paul Sullivan’s music very specifically synchronized to the stage action, “Aeros” details the adventures of an accidentally grounded space explorer (Santillano) in a world where people either waddle around grasping their ankles or swoop through the air held high by devoted minions. Lawrence Casey’s costumes make the inhabitants look like lobster salads and the visitor an early aviator, while the knockabout comedy tests the six dancers’ skill as farceurs.

Yes, it’s incorrigibly silly and shamelessly sweet from first to last--exactly like a birthday party, except no sticky fingers or stomachaches.

* Pilobolus dances “Aeros” and other works at 8 p.m. on Tuesday in the Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. Tickets: $22.50-$32.50. (818) 243-2611.