Batter up!

Young Chang

Can baseball be beautiful?

Can it be graceful, surreal and feminine? How about artistic and

altogether otherworldly?

Moses Pendleton says yes.

The creator and member of Momix, a company of dancer-illusionists who

will perform Sunday at Orange Coast College, has seen it done. With some

lights, some props, a sound collage and the grace of the human dancing

body, Momix will portray the sport artistically.

“With ‘Baseball,’ we’ve taken an American pastime and taken it off

into a surreal impression of the game that is both comedic and poetic,”

Pendleton said. “It’s magical and evocative enough that people go away

with different impressions.”

He calls the one-hour 40-minute show a “seven-inning stretch.” Seven

dancers come together to form a prop -- a baseball glove, for example --

and dance as one big object. Some perform independently. They create

illusions with dance.

But the show does not tell a story. While different sections play off

of elements of baseball and portray the evolution of the game, the

production is more about magic and illusion than a plot-line.

“Momix draws from the natural world,” Pendleton said. “If you look at

a rock long enough, it starts to look like a human head. I like seeing

form in nature.”

Pendleton has also included two commercials -- a beer ad and a

Wheaties ad -- which the dancers will perform.

The 18-person group has performed around the world, with five Italian

television features and a stint representing the United States at the

European Cultural Center in Delphi, Greece, to their credit.

Seven of Momix’s members will put on “Baseball.”

Sunday, one dancer will play a ball -- his plight being that he must

dodge baseball bats on stage. Five other dancers will play a glove trying

to entice the ball into its pocket. When caught, the person playing the

ball will emerge from the dip in the glove almost like Venus on a

half-shell. This piece is called, appropriately enough, “Glove at First

Sight.”

Cynthia Quinn, a dancer with Momix for 16 years, will perform a solo

as a pitcher doing the “wind-up.” She will contort her body and whirl, as

if preparing to pitch.

“I think that solo kind of came about as a reaction to trying to do

something very feminine in a very male sport, without copying the male

jocks,” Quinn said. “And I put on a long, black, velvet dress.”

Trained in ballet, the dancer said she is drawn to Momix because the

style of dance allows her to explore her own way of moving.

“But [the style] is a lot about a way of thinking, as opposed to just

a way of moving,” she said.

Pendleton arrived at the idea for Momix 18 years ago while suffering a

broken leg. He was a trained skier at the time, trying to recover and

qualify for the Junior National Ski Team. “So no one says ‘break a leg’

before a show,” he quipped.

FYI

WHAT: Momix

WHEN: 4 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, 2701 Fairview

Road, Costa Mesa

COST: $25-$33

CALL: (714) 432-5880