Momix comes up to bat at the Joyce.

NEW YORK CITY--"I never really saw myself as just a choreographer," observes Moses Pendleton, the artistic director of Momix dance company, which returns to the Joyce Theater in New York City from December 13 to January 1. Pendleton comes up with the terms "visualist" and "fantasist" when discussing his work. Momix's Joyce Theater program will offer a mixed bill; the full-length Passion (1991), set to a score by Peter Gabriel; and a major new work on the theme of baseball.

The baseball premiere, still untitled at press time, had its origins in 1992 as a twenty-minute work commissioned for the opening of the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, in the Arizona city where the San Francisco Giants are based for spring training. In preparing the piece, the Momix dancers worked out with the ball players ("We got dressed in the manager's dressing room," Pendleton recalls) and drew on baseball movements for the choreography. Known for original and imaginative work with props, Momix found a multitude of possibilities in the "three icons" of baseball--bat, ball, and glove. Pendleton felt that the first version of the piece represented "a couple of innings" and saw the potential for extending it to the equivalent of a complete game.

His choice of baseball as a theme for the Joyce season turned out to be especially timely, given the 1994 ballplayers' strike and the historical perspective provided by Ken Burns's massive PBS series on the subject. "It's an interesting time to be working on this, because the sport itself is being redefined," he remarks.

Speaking while in the midst of rehearsals for the new work, Pendleton describes his approach as "taking the spirit, the essence of the game, and redefining it." He envisions the completed work with a structure that parallels the baseball season. He mentions a "dark" section that suggests the strike and its effects and also alludes to broader possibilities. "It's open to fantasy, and it will be interesting to see how surreal you can get with it." The sound collage he is preparing will include the national anthem, as well as other, less likely elements, and Pendleton has collected weeks' worth of baseball headlines from the back pages that he hopes to incorporate into the work as slide projections.

Momix, which is now fourteen years old, tours a great deal, much of the time in Europe. These days the eleven-member troupe splits itself in half so that one contingent can perform on tour while the other remains back home, in Washington, Connecticut, to work on new material. The troupe is particularly popular in Spain and Italy.

In recent years Pendleton has been putting his penchant for fantasy and vivid imagery to use in a wide variety of genres, including opera productions, film and television projects, and music videos. He works frequently in Italian television. Pendleton's most recent projects include creating an underwater sequence for a 3D IMAX film called Imagine, and choreographing Lina Wertmuller's production of Carmen. Upcoming projects include co-directing The Magic Flute. "They're all experiments; there are no real rules for them," Pendleton says of these ventures.

Despite the international flavor of his resume, Pendleton is most concerned with remaining close to home and to the sunflowers he tends in his garden. "I do a great deal of work here, with headphones on. There are a lot of projects I don't do because they don't fit into the natural cycle of being in Litchfield County and working in this garden. It's mostly a question of energy--how to remain youthful and energetic and basically positive. The life-style is very crucial to the work style. If you can get that organized, then you can accomplish a lot of things, and there's a lot of room for fantasy."

RELATED ARTICLE: PRESIDENT AWARDS NATIONAL MEDAL OF ARTS 

WASHINGTON, D.C.--At a ceremony held October 14 in the White House, President Bill Clinton awarded the National Medal of Arts to ten American artists, an arts organization, and a noted arts philantropist. The president selected the recipients personally from a list of nominations provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Among the honorees were the former dancers and choreographers Erick Hawkins and Gene Kelly.

According to the president, who had declared October National Arts and Humanities Month: "These extraordinary and talented individuals have borne eloquent testimony to the enduring power of the arts and the humanities in our everyday lives. They have contributed profoundly to the richness and variety of our nation's cultural life, and so it is with enormous gratitude that we pay them national tribute."

Hillary Rodham Clinton stated: "We are extremely pleased to honor each of these wonderful Americans, whose life's work is an everlasting gift to the nation."

At the same ceremony, five Americans were awarded the 1994 Charles Frankel Prize for work in the humanities, and Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island received the Presidential Citizens Medal for his notable efforts as an arts advocate.