The MOMIX performance of “Alice” is a multimedia experience that combines athletic dance, eye-popping costumes and imaginative props to create an environment intended to trick and tweak the imagination.
Presented by the La Jolla Music Society, the show on Saturday at the San Diego Civic Theatre, is inspired by Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” the story about a young girl who dreams a of falling down a rabbit hole and meeting a bizarre cast of characters that include a hookah-puffing caterpillar, the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit.
If the fictional Alice were consulted, she would undoubtedly claim that the upcoming show named after her is “curiouser and curiouser!”
La Jolla Music Society will present Momix dance company performing “Alice” on Dec. 6 at the San Diego Civic Theatre.(Sharen Bradford)
Founded by artistic director Moses Pendleton, MOMIX is an offshoot of the dance company Pilobolus, which Pendleton co-founded in 1971 while attending Dartmouth College.
“I take a different approach to the show and to MOMIX,” Pendleton explains.
“I see my work as a sculptor, a photographer or visual artist who is putting together visual phenomena and interesting things that might lend itself to choreography. My background is different from a normal dance background.”
Pendleton grew up on a Vermont dairy farm (Momix is the name of a powdered milk supplement for calves), and much of his choreographic inspiration comes from being outdoors and photographing nature.
Last month, many of Pendleton’s images were exhibited at the University of Texas, where he was honored by members of the Dallas arts and performance community with a 2025 Brettell Award, which included a $150,000 prize and a residency.
“Photography trains the eye in seeing things that others find invisible,” Pendleton says. “That’s part of the aesthetic of MOMIX. It is making visible what it is at first, unseen.”
La Jolla Music Society will present Momix dance company performing “Alice” on Dec. 6 at the San Diego Civic Theatre.(Sharen Bradford)
When on tour, the props used by the company travel separately by truck and include ladders, stilts, ropes, pool noodles, stretch fabrics and multiple inflatables.
There are eight main dancers in the show, four men and four women, who have proven to be physically strong, graceful and with what Pendleton describes as possessing an “innate musicality.”
The Caterpillar in “Alice,” for instance, is depicted by dancers manipulating large, blue exercise balls so that it looks as if the insect is moving.
The Queen of Hearts, known for beheading her subjects, is a soloist who performs an illusionist trick that makes it look as if a disconnected head can spin independent of the spine.
At the end of “Alice,” there are invisible performers behind a black curtain with slits and they manipulate large red roses attached to stems created with eight feet of black pipe.
MOMIX dance rehearsals and a variety of music help to incubate ideas. Pendleton wants his dancers to not just move to music, he wants them to become music.
The Connecticut studio, where Pendleton works with his longtime partner and associate director Cynthia Quinn, is equipped with quadraphonic sound.
“I use music in the creative process, almost like a therapist or psychologist,” Pendleton says.
“Sound frees up the dancer, and I get them not to think choreographically but to react to the environment of sound, so, they begin to put on a performance of play. There is much going on in the stream of the unconscious, and I’m trying to tap into that, so they improvise. I come up with a lot of interesting things. I try to be a catalyst — inspire them, humor them, excite them, frighten them but video tape them, as well. At morning coffee, the next day, there may be shards of information that can be reworked into the piece.”
“Alice” is an all-ages show and Pendleton stresses that it’s not a literal depiction, rather, it’s a fantastical and figurative portrayal.
Like past interpretations of the Alice in Wonderland story by Tim Burton, Salvador Dali and Walt Disney, Pendleton says he took the iconic characters and images from the original and created a MOMIX in Wonderland.
The show is accompanied by 20 pieces of music, chosen to be heard as “a musical curve to the evening.”
One of the songs picked for “ALICE” is Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 recording of “White Rabbit,” a song written by Grace Slick.
“We had to put that in there,” Pendleton says warmly.
“It’s very recognizable. And if you don’t know what you are looking at, ask Alice. When she’s 10 feet tall.”
La Jolla Music Society presents MOMIX: ‘Alice’
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., San Diego
Tickets: $39.95-$129.05
Phone: 858-459-3728
Online: sandiegotheatres.org