The Carolina Connoisseur

Samuel Scripps Award Ceremony
Presented by Peter Schickele, June 18, 2000

The American Dance Festival family spent a joyous evening in Page Auditorium as Pilobolus received the annual Scripps Award, "established to honor those great choreographers who have dedicated their lives and talent to the creation of our modern dance heritage" (to quote the program).

Composer Peter Schickele, also known as the famous satirist, P.D.Q. Bach, was appropriately on hand to do the honors.

He’s an old friend of Pilobolus, a product of the same New England hills and ‘60s beliefs, and attended many of the company’s earliest experimental performances.

The American Dance Festival itself played its part in Pilobolus’ history. The troupe was first invited to dance at the Festival in 1973, very early in its career, and has premiered works at ADF nearly every year since.

Its innovative choreography created a sensation, and the exposure the company received at ADF helped make it one of the most influential, and successful, modern dance troupes of the 20th century.

For this special evening, the company presented two works, Aeros (1996) and the very early Walklyndon (1971).

Aeros (1996)

The former, in typical Pilobolus fashion, suggests a lot of narrative without imposing a linear plot. An aviator lands on a tropical island - or is he an astronaut visiting an alien planet?

The company’s dancers possess the ability to transform themselves into an alien species simply by bending forward and grabbing their ankles.

Walklyndon is one of the original movement improvisations created by the four guys, (heterosexual, they mention in interviews), going to Dartmouth in the last years of the ‘60s, who decided dance was a viable way to say things they wanted to say (the basis of all artistic production). The fifth member of their collective was their Dartmouth dance teacher, Alison Becker Chase.

The basis of Walklyndon is simplicity itself - dancers walk back and forth across the stage, alone and in groups, to just the sound of their own "foot music."

On this night, others soon get into the act, former members of the troupe in town for the ceremony, the original directors, to thunderous applause.

Others are sucked into the action.

Charles Rheinhardt, president and co-director of the ADF, strolls through.

Then, Peter Schickele streaks naked across the stage, followed by two female dancers. Afternoon of the Faun, indeed.

Schickele (fully clothed - presenting the Scripps, at left) is reprising a role he played years ago in an early production, but it’s nice to see streaking, that venerable ‘60s tradition, has not lost its power to shock (and delight).

The company’s final bows recreate what must be the most memorable curtain call in dance history. The performers skim across the stage on a giant "slippery slide," striking poses. The perfect final touch.

The Scripps Award itself is deserved, maybe even a little overdue.

Pilobolus is one of the few surviving, living, breathing creations of the ‘60s. (It’s named for a mushroom, by the way.)

Its choreography, and its business decisions, are still arrived at by the collective process - never an easy route, and not one that many can claim to have successfully followed for 30 years.

"We had a vision of what the good life could be," Robby Barnett, one of the original members, says. And they have continued to express that ideal, with humor and imagination, for three decades. -RWright