Review | ‘ALICE’ Is an Adventure Worth Taking

Dance-Illusionists MOMIX Take Us on a Surreal Trip Through the Looking-Glass and Down a Rabbit Hole

The caterpillars | Photo: Sharen Bradford

MOMIX took us on a delightful journey through the looking-glass for an enjoyable evening of dance, acrobatics, humor, and exceptionally clever costumes and props with the recent contemporary dance production of ALICE, which was an add-on part of the Broadway in Santa Barbara series at The Granada Theatre on October 1.

Alice grows and grows in Momix’s ‘ALICE’ show | Photo: Sharen Bradford

Artistic Director Moses Pendleton’s newest creation — inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in a thematic rather than literal way — made for a fabulous showcase of choreography and shapes, as Alice’s body grows, shrinks, shrinks and grows again and again, and the dancers themselves shrink and extend their bodies by means of props, ropes, other dancers, and pure showmanship and athleticism.

With so many stunning visual puns and surreal storytelling scenarios still sticking in my brain more than a week later, it’s hard to select just a few favorite numbers to highlight. Although the finale of “Go Ask Alice,” to the psychedelic rock tune of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” was certainly a standout as the Alice character morphed from several into one and grew up and up and up to the rafters with the song playing.

The seemingly naked “Trip of Rabbits”; the freakishly funny baby-faced (literally, with enlarged photographs of baby faces on the dancers’ heads) “Tweedles”; the “Cracked Mirrors,” using their multiplying properties to great effect; and the “Advice from a Blue Caterpillar” who happened to be created from a troupe of blue-exercise-ball-carrying dancers, were all memorably enjoyable in their own ways. So was the entire show — an eccentric, magical journey that left me under the spell of ALICE long after the curtain went down.

As Pendleton told me when I interviewed him prior to seeing the show, “I think MOMIX offers a bit of an escape fantasy. We invite people to join us in the rabbit hole.” I’m so glad I followed him there.