Take a Splendid Journey Down the Rabbit Hole with MOMIX’s ‘ALICE’

Prepare to go flying down the rabbit hole in an exceptionally inventive way with the new production of ALICE from MOMIX, a world-renowned dance company known for combining dance and movement with illusion and mystery, utilizing lighting effects, costumes, props, and music for a complete sensory experience. MOMIX: ALICE comes to The Granada Theatre on Tuesday, October 1, after having been postponed in the spring due to flooding at the venue. 

“We’re older now, and the show is older and wiser, so maybe it [the delay] was a good thing,” shared director and choreographer Moses Pendleton, who founded MOMIX in 1981, after co-founding the innovative contemporary dance company Pilobolus a decade earlier. Speaking on the phone from his Connecticut base, Pendleton shared a few things about what we can expect from his newest production, a mind-bending adventure where Alice encounters time-honored characters including the undulating Caterpillar, a lobster quadrille, frenzied White Rabbits, a mad Queen of Hearts, and a variety of other surprises.

What do you think it is about Alice in Wonderland that’s so inspiring and has been so open to creative interpretation by so many different kinds of artists?  That it lends itself to interpretation, so that’s where we come in. Of course, Lewis Carroll would be the first one to say that his book and story never would still be talked about if it hadn’t been for a very fine illustrator named John Tenniel, who, as you know, did the first illustrations of the story. So it was a combination of the story and visual impressions of the story in one book that really gave its success. And throughout this history, it has always been an inspiration to interpret Alice. …

I always use the example of Salvador Dalí, who was commissioned to do 12 Dalí paintings on the theme of Alice, and I was inspired by it, because if I didn’t know that’s what they were, I would say, “These are really intriguing Dalí paintings, but I’d have no idea it was Alice.” It was his impression of Alice. So, I was more impressed by other people’s impressions of Alice. Along with Dalí, I would have to say that Walt Disney probably was the greatest impression I had of Alice. Which wasn’t really the book, as you know, the cartoon was a combination, a mix of Looking Glass and Alice [Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland], and they took off. 

So MOMIX is not doing Alice in Wonderland, so much as we’re being inspired by the story, the nonsense, the surrealism, the humor, the iconic characters, and put it in a kind of visual physical theater called MOMIX, which physicalizes a lot of the characters into movement and sculptures and a visual impression of it. So we do take liberties with it. And as I say, Carroll was wanting us to do that. You know, he oversaw over 100 productions on the West End and other places in England, moving his story onto the stage, and I’ve read that, he said that he was most happy when he would come and see theater productions of his story. 

What was your own journey creating this show?  We have to have a theme; whether it’s baseball or botanic gardens or alchemy, we have a kind of an idea. And I thought that because, over many years, people have described MOMIX in Carrollian metaphors, so there is a kindred spirit there in terms of the humor and the surrealism. …

I have jokingly said that it is Alice, not Alice in Wonderland. … People shouldn’t go expecting to see Alice in Wonderland, but to see kind of moments, an impression of it. … It does give us another area to create and invent in. … I don’t intend to retell the whole Alice story, but to use it as a taking-off point for invention. —Leslie Dinaberg

MOMIX: ALICE shows at The Granada Theatre (1214 State St.) Tuesday, October 1, at 7:30 p.m. See granadasb.org.