January 6-12, 2005

artpicks

Sea Creatures

by Janet Anderson

dance

Klieg lights, please. There's a world-premiere dance event this week: Lunar Sea. And now a drum roll: It's from audience favorite Momix, the inventive, some might even say downright wacky, troupe under the direction of Moses Pendleton, who began as a founder of Pilobolus (which, as a matter of fact, started the whole inventive, wacky, body-manipulative, prop-wielding dance thing.) Comprendez?

Expect no swans at this world premiere. In fact, you'll have trouble figuring out if you're watching people. Lunar Sea promises to create visual images onstage that'll leave you wondering where dancers stop and lighting begins. The press photographs look as much like an arty assemblage of kitchen implements as dancers' bodies. And to further confuse things, Michael Curry, of the great Lion King design team, has created not only costumes but puppets. A musical collage that includes Buddha Experience, Brian Eno and Hans Zimmer suggest even further dimensions of artistic intertwining.

Lunar Sea, a work in two acts ("Sea of Tranquility" and "Bay of Seethings"), has been in the pipeline for two years. It's a big production that originated as a commission by Aspen-Santa Fe Ballet and Connecticut's Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts, and the abstract idea just kept growing and growing. It's a big deal for Annenberg's Dance Celebration for us to have the world premiere here. When it packs up its illusions, the Connecticut-based Momix takes them across the sea to Italy … and beyond.

Momix, Thu., Jan. 6, 7:30 p.m., Fri., Jan. 7, 8 p.m., Sat., Jan. 8, 2 and 8 p.m., $32-$44, Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St., 215-898-3900.