“MOMIX- Alice” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

***** “MOMIX – Alice” is eye candy par excellence! Creator, founder, and artistic director Moses Pendleton has created a technicolor masterpiece, filled with fantastical people, plants, and animals that make up an enchanted and mystical alternate universe, taken from the pages of “Alice in Wonderland.” Light, charming, cheerful, and family friendly, the tale is told through bold dance by a state-of-the-art troupe. Amazing antics, such as floating and flying, make up various scenes. Above all, the show is filled with phantasmagoric imagery: highly creative visual projections that expand and move and twist in all sorts of weird ways, which add flavor to the choreography and highlight the incredible dance numbers. The performance begins with Alice sitting outdoors, reading the novel about her life. But when she turns the book upside-down, her whole world goes topsy-turvy. And so the magic begins… and she eventually goes down a rabbit hole.

In addition to raw physicality, devices such as ladders and ropes and skateboards propel the performers across and above the stage. Among other things, the dancers mimic real-life animals. One of my favorite creatures is the giant white spider, where we see a woman wearing an extraordinarily beautiful puppet costume designed by Michael Curry. Then too, there are rabbits and snakes and frogs and creatures plucked out of the imagination. The way that the dancers hold each other up, backwards and forwards and upside-down, often make the duo look like beings that aren’t human. In one of my favorite scenes, a man holds a woman upside-down, and her legs become the wings by his ears—and her ponytail becomes an animal’s tail. Then there are props like balls and mirrors which the dancers interact with and intersect with, creating multiple Alices that shrink and grow, together with multiple dimensions and personalities.

The costumes, created by designer Phoebe Katzin, are especially inventive and imaginative. Some are almost cartoon-like in their unusual shapes and sizes, such as those of the Queen of Spades, Queen of Clubs, and Queen of Hearts. Then again, Alice is always the young woman who wears a diaphanous and flouncy white peasant-style dress and who sports long dark blonde hair. But what makes most of the garments special is how they appear when lights and images are projected unto them. These costumes often hide a lot of the skillfulness of the dance movements, and make a very complicated routine look simpler and easier than it really is. It is the same with the clever prop design and especially all of the mirrors which hide the motions of the dancers beneath. When the non-shapely costumes and props prevent us from seeing the dancers’ exact movements, I am reminded of a duck furiously paddling underwater—when all you see from above is the tranquil glide.

The music is made up of all different genres: some fully instrumental and some vocal. We hear clicks and pops and music in various languages from all sorts of countries, such as Spain and India. There is even music from the Wild West. And the music shifts in style and tempo, depending on the scene.

The people sitting immediately behind us had two kids about four years old who kept talking throughout the performance. “What is that?” one would say, and the parents would shush them. The kids seemed the most disturbed by the strange, giant baby-like heads worn by the dancers in one of the scenes. But they knew the names of the various animals and were particularly enamored by the giant cat visual. “Fluffy kitty-cat,” they kept saying.

Towards the beginning and the end of the show, we see a long ladder, which becomes the two bookends for the story. And when Alice’s book is turned right-side up again, we know that the finale is close at hand. But something has changed in the process. While we begin with Alice in a quiet pastoral setting, we basically end up with pop culture and rock ’n roll—and the triumph of the psychedelic.

As creator Pendleton states, “I want to take this show into places we haven’t been before in terms of dancing, lighting, music, costumes, and projected imagery.” Taken together, this production is a stroke of genius! Yet this spectacular event was a one night only performance. Please make a note to see it when the troupe comes this way again!

“Momix – Alice” was performed on March 9, 2024, at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Ida B. Wells Drive, Chicago.

For more information about “MOMIX: Alice”, see: https://auditoriumtheatre.org/events-details/momix/.

For general information and to learn about the other offerings at the Auditorium Theatre, visit: https://auditoriumtheatre.org/.

For general information about MOMIX, visit: https://www.momix.com/.

For a list of where MOMIX will appear throughout 2024, go to: https://www.momix.com/calendar/.