2B
Pilobolus, with Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollack
American Dance Festival
Closed July 11
Ever have one of those dreams that seemed so vivid and just made so much sense while you were in itbut when you woke up it was gibberish? Not to worry, you’re not alone. Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollack have had one, too. It’s called 2B, and Pilobolus gave it its world premiere last weekend at the American Dance Festival, in a program that included several older works.
We’d be tempted to call this amalgam of black balloons, kitschy, primary-colored costumes and odd set devices, including a rolling red doorframe less than 3 feet square, neither fish nor fowlexcept a character in a fish-head costume does figure into the far-too-cryptic proceedings.
After aerial dancer Andrew Herro memorably descends to the floor through a nimbus of balloons at the start, he and the other three dancers make much ado about little. Nevertheless, the contortions Matt Del Rosario pushes himself into in order to place himself, simultaneously, within, above and on both sides of the doorframe were impressive, and the ensemble got cheap laughs from slapstick maneuvers liberally sprinkled throughout.
But by being placed alongside Pinto and Pollack’s brilliant 2007 Pilobolus collaboration, Rushes, in the same concert, 2B suffered in comparison. Jokes, it’s got. But it lacks the character development, the humanity and the depth of the earlier work.
