Maurice Sendak and Pilobolus – The Last Dance
In 1999 the dance troupe teamed up with a pair of unlikely collaborators: Maurice Sendak and opera director Arthur Yorinks. It was the first time Pilobolus had allowed outsiders to contribute to their unique process, and the result was a dark and masterful rumination on the Holocaust called A Selection. While the end result may have been a brilliant success, the journey to that point was awkward and contentious, to say the least. Mirra Bank’s 2002 documentary Last Dance provides an intimate look at the backstage drama, the dance’s evolution, and Sendak’s imagination at work.
And this is where I think Sendak and Pilobolus finally found their common ground: in a form—the human body or a picture book—so seemingly humble and quiet, but so ready to explode emotionally. As Sendak says in “Last Dance”: “You make the whole thing up anyway. You sit there, they sit there, we’re all making it up…. So if you’re making it up, make it up good.” (Via)
R.I.P Maurice Bernard Sendak – (June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012)
TELL THEM ANYTHING YOU WANT: A PORTRAIT OF MAURICE SENDAK 2009 directed by Lance Bangs, Spike Jonze.
Maurice Sendak’s Opera inspired drawings here.