Pilobolus delightful dancers ‘seen and still not believed’

Since 1971, Pilobolus dancers have provided smiles, and moments of amazement, to audiences around the world, in theaters and on television. They did not disappoint at The Smith Center on Wednesday, as a near-capacity crowd enjoyed almost two hours of "seen and still not believed" images.

The group - based in Connecticut and named after a barnyard fungus that has the ability to turn toward the light - mixes traditional modern dance with jazz, tumbling, gymnastics, acrobatics and perhaps even a good game of chess, each move calculated to vary and improve upon the one preceding.

Dancers moved alone, in pairs or groups. In one memorable sequence, a half dozen were on part of the stage while live images of those same dancers dominated the other half.

The seven-member troupe, usually dressed in unisex tops and pants and performing before a dark background, offered five dances.

"Gnomen," with four male dancers, showed the moves, designs and formations for which the group is most noted: almost molecular with innate symmetry. Four became one with eight legs and arms, moving in a slow circle, syncopated and easy. At other times, the work became almost literally a strongman contest, as one man seemed to use brute strength alone to stand above his troupe members. Images were often pleasingly mind-bending-and one could have wished for even more.

"All is Not Lost" is performed to music of alternative rock bank OK GO and is similar to an online video of the same name. Here, the dancers were stage left, performing on a glass platform several feet above a video camera flat on the floor. Stage right was a large screen, with projections of the camera's images. Those images were worlds wilder than what was going on. At one point, the dancers stood on the glass and moved, slightly - and the camera showed eight flat feet, together, seeming to be unattached to anything else. This illusion versus reality was engrossing and inventive.

The closing "Megawatt," from 2004, was by far the most energetic piece of the evening, with six dancers walking, coming together, moving apart, now herky-jerky as if shot through by electricity, now with amazing strength and body control as strong as the strongest light. The tumbles and gyrations mixed into the work created something that seemed as if it should have exhausted the troupe long before its completion and was a standing ovation-receiving crowd pleaser.

A few short films of "things" were included between dances, some engrossing, some less so. Yes, it's a big, busy world, and street scenes of a large Asian city established that in "Traffic," while "Starlings" would make any devotee of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" smile with its whirling, whorling images of large flocks of birds in flight. More fun, "Explosions" could have come straight from one of TV's science channels, videoing what happens when certain things meet: a birthday cake and fireworks (a lot); a full cola bottle and a chain saw (surprisingly, not much).