Staff writer Chelsea Katz got the inside scoop in an exclusive interview with Renée Jaworski, the associate artistic director and performer in the Pilobolus dance company.
Chelsea Katz: Charles Reinhart, the director of the American Dance Festival, said in an interview with 60 Minutes that Pilobolus’ dancing is based on “athletics, science and bodies.” What would you say is the inspiration for Pilobolus’ dance style?
Renée Jaworski: That and anything else that you can think of. We see everything as an inspiration to us. People are an inspiration. Nature. Anything that exists in this world is a part of it … We did a collaboration with MIT Digital Lab last year and got a couple of smart people in a room with us to work with robots, and we created a piece with dancers and robots. It’s a trio so there is one robot and two dancers, and that was technology-inspired. These robots, they’re drones. They’re the type of robots that have GPS on them, and they can kind of fly and go through tiny open windows when they’re programmed. Of course, we thought it was the coolest thing in the world. They’re quadrators: they’ve got four propellers on them. They’re like little swarms flying around. When they’re together, they look like birds, like flocks, like schools of fish swimming. So there, technology is inspiring. Although you do get nicked a little bit every now and then. The helicopters, they hurt, little slices here and there and blood … but you keep going.
CK: In Pilobolus’ featured video on YouTube, the dancers seem to be speaking during the piece. How do you feel that speech contributes to your performance?
RJ: It’s not really speaking for the audience to hear, although they do hear. It’s more for us because we’re in our own little world up there that we’re attempting to create onstage … and what we’re doing there, we’re just having a conversation with each other. At the same time, we’re having a conversation with the audience with our movements. It’s a way for us to be in character, to interact with each other, to connect with each other. We’re very verbal all the time. In the creative process, we talk a lot. We talk over each other; we talk around each other; we talk at each other. Through this company, I have learned that the verbal processing of information is really important to the collaborative process. You need to kind of spill your brain onto people so your collaborators can pick through it, the same way that you should let your collaborators spill their brain on other people so you can pick through it … From that we are able to learn more from each other and bring more to the table. So, yeah, talking is important. We just don’t shut up. Sometimes we’ll be talking on stage to kind of be like “All right, this is the fifth show in a row. We just had a 12-hour travel day, and we got to do this.” Part of this is through talk. I look at my fellow dancers on stage and I just scream at them like “AH, let’s get this going!” Like there’s a fire burning. Find little things to make us laugh; we make each other sad, if we want the audience to feel a specific thing or to make each other feel this specific thing.
CK: According to Pilobolus’ blog, the company has been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video for “All is Not Lost.” Any comments?
RJ: Oh, I’m totally pumped. I’m more excited to sit in the audience and watch the show. I think it’s going to be very cool. This video that we did with OK Go was fun to make so it’s nice to know that its appreciated the same way that we appreciate it. You know you work so hard on something, you spend hours thinking about it, growing a plot, falling on a Plexiglas table and getting so many bruises, and in the end other people look at it and go, “That was worth it.” We think it’s worth it.
CK: Out of all the numbers in tonight’s performance, which is your favorite and why?
RJ: We’re doing a preview of a new piece. This is the first time that we’re showing this piece. I’m most excited for this piece because we’ve never seen it in front of an audience except from our friends who love us. So they always tell us what they think, and that’s great, but showing to strangers is a whole new process. And we get to see them miced and costumes. And we’ve been working so hard on it. I’m just super hard on it … Tonight it’s being born on the stage.
CK: If you could work with any dancer ever in history, dead or alive, who would you choose?
RJ: I’ve never been asked that one before. [Pauses] You know, I never actually performed with the founders of Pilobolus. That would be fun. Other than that, I would want to move with every one of the modern dance movers and shakers, but nobody in ballet. I wouldn’t want to do ballet except Barishnykov. That would be hot.
CK: What advice do you have for dancers that are looking to join such an iconic dance company such as Pilobolus?
RJ:  Well, work hard. Know yourself. When we’re looking for people, we’re not necessarily looking for people who can lift their leg up and spin around 10 times.
We’re looking for people who can share their soul on the stage and invite people to look at them. We’re looking for a performance quality and from there it’s completely worth it. So be yourself.