Almost 300 people auditioned for two highly coveted positions with the main touring company. What I find really interesting about attending something like this – as opposed to a fully produced proscenium performance – is how it makes you think about the qualities of a company in a more specific light.
When we came into the audition, they were wrapping up the end of the third day of auditions, and they had condensed the pool down to about 25 auditionees. This segment was more of a “round robin” format, with random pairings of two auditionees as well as one auditionee and one company member. This makes sense, as Pilobolus works are never the vision of just one person; rather, they are a collaboration between the artistic directors and the dancers (if you read a Pilobolus program carefully, the choreography of any given piece is almost always credited to its original cast as well as to the artistic directors). Company members must be able to improvise, add their own voice to the creative process, and riff off ideas provided by directors.
Of course, there are other qualities I found myself looking at – a certain combination of strength and delicacy; puckish humor; and an almost gymnastic physical control. Towards the end of the day, participants moved away from improve and began learning specific lifts from the Pilobolus repertory, when you could really start to see what sets the company apart from its peers – the ability to collaborate and bring artistry to near-impossible physical feats.
Can’t wait to see how the company moves forward!
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