It all started back in 1971 with some Dartmouth College jocks who had only just begun taking modern dance classes. Since then, Pilobolus Dance Theater and its offshoots, Momix, ISO, and Apogee Arts, have been performing highly original, physical theater the world over.

How do the members of Pilobolus develop their extraordinary skills? What's it like to perform with Pilobolus? What to watch for in the upcoming Pilobolus concert at Playhouse Square?

To find out, we spoke with Chris Whitney, a Cleveland native and a member of Pilobolus.

Cool Cleveland: We hear that you're a local, a Cleveland Heights High graduate and that you started dancing with Bill Wade's Inlet Dance Theater.
Chris Whitney: That's right. Bill gave me my first dance class ever.

What year did you graduate from Heights High?
CW: 2001, then I spent 2 years dancing with Inlet as an intern before I started at Ohio University.

You're not the first person that Bill has sent off to Pilobolus.
CW: Right. Bill also trained Cleotha McJunkins, who came from the YARD.

You went to China and did Shaolin training?
CW: Yes. I got some grants from school as part of my research for a thesis on Brazilian capoeira, Chinese kung fu, and American modern dance.

This was just like in the kung fu movies, right?
CW: Absolutely. It's unbelievable how right they've got it. We would wake up at 5 in the morning, run, do some tai chi, eat breakfast and then train until lunch, eat lunch and train until dinner, eat dinner and train until it got dark and then everyone would just pass out. And then you'd get up and do it again the next day. Some of the soundest sleep I've ever had was on a piece of plywood on an old bed frame with - they call it a mattress but we'd call it a quilt.

In a company full of exceptional movers, you're known as an unusually athletic, agile, and acrobatic guy. "That's our Chris," says the interviewer on the Pilobolus website. That's you in the photo, right? (below)
CW: Yeah, that's me up in the air. That one's pretty insane. Jun (Jun Kuribayashi, Pilobolus' Dance Captain) took that one. He gets a lot of good pictures of us on the road. I think the reason they refer to me that way is that I'll just do it whatever it is. I don't not-get-hurt but I don't get injured.

I have the concert rep here. What's the big finale piece?
CW: I think the final piece will be MEGAWATT, a finale if there ever was one. It's full company, full throttle. To perform that piece right, you have to give it every ounce that you've got.

What does the audience see?
CW: I think they see how hard you're working. I remember the first time I saw MEGAWATT I slowly realized, 'these people haven't slowed down at all... ohmygosh, they're still going, they're still doing crazy hard things and it just keeps ramping up.'

What about RUSHES? We gather that's something of a breakthrough piece with choreography by Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak, choreographers from Israel.
CW: They are some of our favorite people to work with, actually. We've been collaborating with them since the creation of RUSHES. We also worked with them on a piece that premiered at the Joyce this past year. They're just a joy, some of the funniest, most interesting people I've ever met.

What is RUSHES like? How can Pilobolus have a breakthrough piece? Everything they do is breakthrough.
CW: Some of the movement is very much what we've always done, but looking at the whole piece, it's totally different. A reviewer last year wrote about a particular character I was then playing in RUSHES, 'As the ghost of Harry Houdini carrying his female self on his back through a clockwork of mismatched cogs and gears.' Something like that. It was an insane quote, but so many people see so many things in this piece. I think that's one of the real strengths that this company has always possessed, is this ability to create images that evoke different things for different people. We're not pushing a specific story or a specific take; we create work that's interesting to watch and that will inspire something.

Let's go on to talk about DOG ID. Is this the one where one of the company's women takes on a dog-like persona?
CW: Right. This is part of the new direction that the company has been taking lately, the shadow work that started with the Hyundai commercial, then the Academy Awards, and then we did a piece collaborating with the puppeteer Basil Twist. We've found this shadow work to be extremely fruitful, and DOG ID is another aspect of this. It's sweet and innocent, incredibly surprising, a little comedic, and people really enjoy it.'''

A solo?
CW: It's a duet. There are other people involved, but not in a way you'd normally expect.

You're being mysterious and we don't want you to spoil the surprise. GNOMEN (1997) is a men's quartet you're in?
CW: That's right. In this show, DOG ID is the only thing I'm not in. GNOMEN was created by 2 of the founding artistic directors, Robby Barnett and Jonathan Wolken, along with 4 of the men who were in the company at the time. It's a wonderful exploration of the way men relate to one another and the development of the individual within the group. It's got some pretty wild lifts. It's poignant and incredibly physical at the same time.

LANTERNA MAGICA (2008)?
CW: LANTERNA is a sweet fantasy world that I think the audience gets drawn into very quickly. It has what a lot of us think of as classical Pilobolus -- lots of weight sharing and lots of counter balance. Somebody's always up in the air, one person lifting 2 people or 3 people flying one person. But it's probably one of the most easily recognizable narratives. You kind of forget how much lifting is going on and the characters and the story come out.'''

You had a leg up at the Pilobolus auditions because of your internship with our local Pilobolus affiliate, Inlet. What is it that one learns from Pilobolus partnering technique?
CW: It's not codified enough to be called a technique. It's kind of a body knowledge that you develop by doing Pilobolus choreography. A lot of the time, Jun and I talk about something we call "Pilobolus Invisible Weight Shifting," because every time you have to teach someone you learn how much stuff you're doing. It's this kind of knowledge that you develop in your body by doing Pilobolus choreography. But, yeah, I was probably as well prepared as anyone could be. Inlet would be perfect preparation for this company.

We understand that you're retiring from dance.
CW: Yes, I'm retiring from dance in the 3rd year of my career with Pilobolus. I'm ready to be at home with my wife in more of a stable, settled way. I'm going back to school for nursing or physician's assistant and we're moving to Pittsburgh, which is her hometown. Her family and I get along famously except during football season.

We're sure that audiences will miss you but touring is hard.
CW: I've been to a lot of strange places where I thought I would never go. Istanbul was pretty amazing. I swam in 3 oceans while working for the company. It's great to experience different cultures and to wake up in a different place every day, but it's also really hard to wake up in a different place every day.

Understandable. Chris, is there anything else you'd like to tell our readers?
CW: People should never be afraid to see something new and hopefully to be challenged. That's what's great about any art, be it a new symphony or a dance concert. People should see it because it will help you take a different look at yourself.


Learn more about Pilobolus at http://www.Pilobolus.org. Cleveland native and Pilobolus dancer Chris Whitney will teach a master class at CSU dance studio from 10 - 11:30AM Sat 5/8. RSVP with Lynn Deering at l.deering@csuohio.edu as space is limited. Hosted by Inlet Dance Theater. Pilobolus performs at Palace Theatre in Playhouse Square for one performance only on Sat 5/8 at 8PM Tickets starting at $10 can be purchased at 216-241-6000 or online at http://www.playhousesquare.org. Co-presented by Cuyahoga Community College and DANCECleveland.

From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.