• Contributors
    • Catherine L. Tully, Owner/Editor
    • Dance Writers
      • Rachel Hellwig, Assistant Editor — Dance
      • Jessika Anspach McEliece, Contributor — Dance
      • Janice Barringer, Contributor – Dance
      • José Pablo Castro Cuevas, Contributor — Dance
      • Katie C. Sopoci Drake, Contributor – Dance
      • Ashley Ellis, Contributor — Dance
      • Samantha Hope Galler, Contributor – Dance
      • Cara Marie Gary, Contributor – Dance
      • Luis Eduardo Gonzalez, Contributor — Dance
      • Karen Musey, Contributor – Dance
      • Janet Rothwell (Neidhardt), Contributor — Dance
      • Matt de la Peña, Contributor – Dance
      • Lucy Vurusic Riner, Contributor – Dance
      • Alessa Rogers, Contributor — Dance
      • Emma Love Suddarth, Contributor — Dance
      • Andrea Thompson, Contributor – Dance
      • Sally Turkel, Contributor — Dance
      • Lauren Warnecke, Contributor – Dance
      • Sharon Wehner, Contributor – Dance
      • Ashley Werhun, Contributor — Dance
      • Dr. Frank Sinkoe, Contributor – Podiatry
      • Jessica Wilson, Assistant Editor – Dance
    • Dance Wellness Panel
      • Jan Dunn, MS, Editor
      • Gigi Berardi, PhD
      • James Garrick, MD
      • Robin Kish, MS, MFA
      • Moira McCormack, MS
      • Janice G. Plastino, PhD
      • Emma Redding, PhD
      • Erin Sanchez, MS
      • Selina Shah, MD, FACP
      • Nancy Wozny
      • Matthew Wyon, PhD
    • Music & Dance Writers
      • Scott Speck, Contributor – Music
    • Interns
      • Intern Wanted For 4dancers
    • Contact
  • About
    • About 4dancers
    • Advertise With 4dancers
    • Product Reviews on 4dancers
    • Disclosure
  • Contact

4dancers.org

A website for dancers, dance teachers and others interested in dance

Follow Us on Social!

Visit Us On YoutubeVisit Us On TwitterVisit Us On PinterestVisit Us On FacebookVisit Us On Instagram
  • 4dancers
    • Adult Ballet
    • Career
    • Auditions
    • Competition
    • Summer Intensives
    • Pointe Shoes & Footwear
      • Breaking In Shoes
      • Freed
      • Pointe Shoe Products
      • Vegan Ballet Slippers
      • Other Footwear
  • 4teachers
    • Teaching Tips
    • Dance History
    • Dance In The US
    • Studios
  • Choreography
  • Dance Wellness
    • Conditioning And Training
    • Foot Care
    • Injuries
    • Nutrition
      • Recipes/Snacks
  • Dance Resources
    • Dance Conferences
    • Dance Products
      • Books & Magazines
      • DVDs
      • Dance Clothing & Shoes
      • Dance Gifts
      • Flamenco & Spanish Dance
      • Product Reviews
    • Social Media
  • Editorial
    • Interviews
      • 10 Questions With…
      • Dance Blog Spotlight
      • Post Curtain Chat
      • Student Spotlight
    • Dance in the UK
    • Finding Balance
    • Musings
    • One Dancer’s Journey
    • Pas de Trois
    • SYTYCD
    • The Business Of Dance
    • Finis
  • Music & Dance
    • CD/Music Reviews

DVD Review: Still Moving: Pilobolus at Forty – A Film By Jeffrey Ruoff

April 28, 2014 by 4dancers

logoby Emily Kate Long

The dance company Pilobolus is named for a fungus that has the ability to launch its spores a distance of up to two meters—for a person, that would mean being thrown through the air at 100 times the speed of sound. The pilobolus fungus is also remarkable for its accuracy. The company makes no such claims; late co-founder Jonathan Wolken describes how Pilobolus’s first forty years brought about “the evolution of our own style…whatever that might be.” As co-diector Robby Barnett remarks, and as Ruoff illustrates, the company is process-oriented. For Barnett, that process is more interesting than any of the finished dances the company has produced.

Still Moving opens with footage of the dancers loading up a couple of cars and hitting the road. They’re on their way from the company’s studios in Washington Depot, CT to Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Wolken, Barnett, and Michael Tracy began the collaboration that would evolve into Pilobolus at Dartmouth in the early 1970s. With no prior dance education, they worked to amuse themselves, living communally and practicing in any spare space they could find.

Forty years out, the company still embraces that experimental, simple, communal way of living and working (some interviews are punctuated by insects chirping in the background). The dancers are like a family, supporting one another through injuries and Wolken’s death in 2010.

Ruoff captures the company thoughtfully through interviews, performance footage, and clips of Pilobolus in rehearsal. Perhaps most telling is footage from the community workshops, classes in which the public get to participate in the creative process of developing movement, comfort and trust in one another to make a short dance work.

The film runs 38 minutes. The DVD also contains a version dubbed over with Ruoff’s insightful commentary. This documentary does a thorough job of celebrating what’s so unique about Pilobolus, a modern dance company that, as Barnett half-jokes, doesn’t “know anything about modern dance.”

 

 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Filed Under: Dance Video, Reviews Tagged With: dance video, dvd review, modern dance, pilobolus

Join Us on YouTube!

Dance Artwork

Get Your Dance Career Info Here!

Dance ebook cover

Podcast

Disclosure – Affiliate & Ad Info

This site sometimes features advertising, affiliate marketing, or affiliate links, such as Amazon Associate links and others. When you click on these links, we get a small sum that helps to support the website operations. Thank you! There’s more detailed information on ads and our disclosure policy under the About tab in our navigation at the top of the site. We clearly mark any and all posts that contain these features.

Copyright Notice

Please note that all of the content on 4dancers.org is copyrighted. Do not copy, utilize, or distribute without express permission. We take cases of infringement seriously. All rights reserved ©2022.

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in