By A large rose appeared in the center of the curtain. The audience members sat up straight in their seats and focused their attention on the flower. Once the curtains opened up, and the rose slowly withdrew into nothingness, our Earth came alive.
Nature inhabited the imagination to the beat of inspiring music in “MOMIX: Botanica” at the Carpenter Center on Saturday night. From feathery-flower petals to a free-roaming skeletal dinosaur, “Botanica” was definitely a treat for the eyes, ears and mind.
The full house witnessed an innovative display by choreography of five men and five women from Moses Pendleton’s company of dancer-illusionists. Through “Botanica,” the human body became everything from plants and trees, to animals, like centaurs and hornets.
The dancing paired with the flowing and creative costumes, adding an illusion of something that is and isn’t there. These included large, wide-spread feathers that changed into the flower petals of a sunflower swaying back and forth.
By using several large-scale props, such as video projections, the dancer-illusionists conveyed a sense of fantasy and curiosity. A woman, in a white dress, ran around the stage while her image was also projected on a screen behind her. What seemed like a calm performance changed when the use of lighting turned to lightning that followed the sounds of rain to a vicious storm. Two men with large flags waved their banners around the stage as the video projection and flashing lights slowed their movements to their eerie stop motion. Using that motion to their advantage, the flags were spun in around the men and created an equally terrifying tornado.
In one of the first pieces of the show, a woman wearing a nude-colored top and bottoms laid on an incline plane made of mirrors. Before her piece had begun, audience members whispered to each other asking whether or not she was wearing something. But once she started to move her body in slow and precise arrangements, this individual dancer on a mirrored-incline became two women. Her arms and legs created odd shapes with its reflection, like the ever-changing shapes of organisms under a microscope. Suddenly, the focus was no longer on the woman, but on the woman in the reflection.
Another impressive display of prop use was the large-scale puppet of a Triceratops’s skeleton. Using Michael Curry’s (Broadway’s “The Lion King”) puppet design, the dinosaur came out on stage with a cavewoman wearing brown top and bottoms, riding on its back and no puppeteer to be seen. The dinosaur seemed excited as she gave it kisses on the nose and it would wag its tail. But also on stage was a caveman lying quietly off to the side. What looked to be a story of the woman’s curiosity trying to examine the man was cut short by what may have been the dinosaur’s jealously.
Along with the use of props, the music contributed greatly to the performances. As the rhythm of the music changed, so did the choreography. The soundtrack to the show had genres such as new age, world, techno and Celtic. The music successfully provoked the feelings that was meant to be felt watching the show.
Men, dressed as hornets with striped hats and shorts, moved quickly around the stage to the sound of fast-paced music. The worldly music heard in this piece alluded anticipation and angst, while the foreign language-like sound emphasized the hard “z” sound in its words.
While truly exposing the beauty of nature, one part of the show exhibited the dancers using large tree branches. The background dancers extended their forest while performing to the song “The Voice” by Celtic Woman.
Each mini-themed performance held up to its “Botanica” feel of botany and nature. From the slow to the face-paced music and footwork, the fantasy of surreal objects came to life. The overall sensation was definitely a unique one.
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