What can be done with the human form?
Pilobolus—named after a barnyard fungus that propels its spores with extraordinary speed, accuracy and strength—is a dance company founded by a group of Dartmouth College students in 1971. Pilobolus continually forms diverse collaborations that break down barriers between disciplines and challenge the way we think about dance. Physically and intellectually, the company engages and inspires audiences around the world through performance, education and consultation.
Pilobolus propels itself in a variety of directions to reach these goals. The original company, Pilobolus Dance Theater, has been touring its 115 pieces of repertory to more than 64 countries over the last 42 years. Pilobolus’s Shadowland, the company’s evening-length show currently touring Europe, the Middle East and Asia, has been seen by more than a half-million people in the three years since it was created.
Pilobolus’s collaborative creative and educational work takes place through the Pilobolus Lab, in which the company both convenes diverse artists in the development of new work and teaches its creative method to individuals and institutions. To date, the Pilobolus Lab has produced collaborations with Penn & Teller, the MIT Distributed Robotics Laboratory, Art Spiegelman, Maurice Sendak, OK Go, Radiolab, and many others.
The Lab's educational programming—which applies Pilobolus’s unique collaborative process to help all kinds of groups work better and achieve common goals—includes workshops, master classes, residencies and children’s programming. Educational partners include Brooklyn Academy of Music, Harlem Children’s Zone, American Dance Festival, and NYC and CT Public Schools.
Pilobolus Creative Services applies this same method of invention to business, offering a wide range of educational, directorial, design and movement services for film, advertising, publishing, and corporate groups and events. The company has collaborated with clients such as Avon, UTC, Wharton Business School, Google, the US Olympic Committee, the NFL Network, Pfizer and many others.
Pilobolus has been featured across the world at the 79th Annual Academy Awards (2007), and on Sesame Street, Oprah, 60 Minutes and Late Night with Conan O’ Brien. It has been recognized with prestigious honors, such as the Berlin Critic's Prize, the Scotsman Award, the Brandeis Award, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cultural Programming, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement in Choreography, and a TED Fellowship for presenting at the TED conference in 2005. Pilobolus holds the 2011 Guinness World Record for fitting the most people into a Mini Cooper (26); and in 2012, the company was nominated for a Grammy® Award for its interactive music video collaboration with OK Go and Google Chrome Japan, “All is Not Lost.” Recently, Pilobolus was honored as the first collective to receive the Dance Magazine Award, which recognizes artists who have made lasting contributions to the field.
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