MOMIX performers dance for all seasons

Expect the unexpected.

That's how audiences should approach a MOMIX performance, says Moses Pendleton, artistic director for the modern dance company based in New York.

MOMIX is scheduled to perform "Botanica" on Friday at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, 361 Symphony Park Ave. The five man, five woman troupe has been touring worldwide for the past three years. This will be their first performance in Las Vegas.

MOMIX, created in 1981, specializes in performances that founder Pendleton calls "visual physical theater." They use props, costumes and lighting to "make contact with the worlds around us that we aren't aware of," Pendleton says. "Namely the plant, animal and mineral worlds."

"Botanica" is a look at the four seasons, MOMIX style.

It starts off in the dead of winter and progresses with each successive season.

Dancers will portray centaurs, butterflies, breathing rocks and other seasonally appropriate characters.

The storyline is not a traditional one; rather, it is centered around the changing of the seasons, Pendleton says.

The dance will be set to a musical arrangement composed of 32 different pieces of music from artists such as Peter Gabriel and Antonio Vivaldi.

Bird sounds and other eclectic sounds will be weaved throughout the score.

"I hope it will bring a bit of wonder, some beauty and sadness about the life cycle," he says of "Botanica." "Beauty is something the world could use a bit more of."

"Botanica," like all MOMIX shows, was inspired by Pendleton's personal hobbies and interests surrounding nature.

"I myself spend 90 percent of my day in the garden," he says. "If I don't make some kind of artistic sense of that, I'm just a farmer. It reflects the passions I'm involved with. The plant world, it does nurture. I've always been inspired by it. I want to take people to the garden and if I can't do that we try to make a show and take the garden to the audience."

"Botanica," which will be performed in Reynolds Hall, starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the show start at $24 and are available through The Smith Center box office, online at thesmithcenter.com or by calling 749-2000.

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @StripSonya on Twitter.