Momix, January 27, 2007, Ferst Center for the Arts

Momix was founded by former Pilobolus member Moses Pendleton, and in case you should forget it, the Momix webpage is www.mosespendleton.com. The company's stock-in-trade is performance that inhabits the space somewhere between dance and Cirque du Soleil. The show presented at the Ferst Center, called Lunar Sea, alternated between otherworldly beauty and tedium.

The show opened with eight dancers on the stage in full-body unitards that were black and white, bifurcating the body into one visible and one "invisible" half. The dancers were lit solely with black lights and set behind a scrim to enhance the illusion. Abstract videos played on the scrim for the entire performance, setting an eerie mood. The half-dancers performed moves that seemingly defied the laws of physics, combining at times to make full dancers that floated above the floor or tilted at crazy angles. The illusion was striking, at least for the first 20 minutes. After that, it lost its novelty, except for the occasional new formation.

There were other sections in the show, but they didn't seem connected in any way. A man and a woman in flesh-colored skimpies performed a sensual duet in red light. Four women in bright green cavorted on clear Pilates balls. The dancers, now completely invisible, put on a short puppet show with spider-like sea creatures that pranced and ate one another. It was skillfully done, but overall it had the sophistication and curiosity of graphics created for an Atari 2600.