The Catapult Dance Company will take the Macey Center stage on Thursday, Oct. 7.
Photo courtesy NM PAS

 

Awesome is quite over-used these days. But it is hard to think of a better adjective to describe the next show scheduled in New Mexico Tech’s Performing Arts Series. The Catapult Dance Company will take the stage at Macey Center on Thursday, Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m.

Finalists in the television series America’s Got Talent, this troupe led by Adam Battlestein uses shadow dance to turn themselves into an amazing array of designs: frogs and elephants and penguins, trees and flowers and oceans and mosques—you name it, the imagination is boggled by the athletic movements and artistic variance this group presents.

Battlestein spent 19 years with the world-renowned dance company, Pilobolus, leaving to start his own “creative endeavor,” as he calls it.

“I liked the name Catapult for its suggestion of muscularity and surprise,” Battlestein said. “I definitely wanted to have a collaborative process for Catapult – I had spent many years working that way and learning to respect and build on other people’s ideas.”

His troupe includes professional dancers from Broadway, the Met, and on stages around the world. Battlestein himself has danced at Carnegie Hall (solo), on the Oprah Show. And, yes, he can even fit his body into a suitcase.

The company recently began touring again with a new show they had been rehearsing at their home stage in Connecticut. The director’s favorite shows include “The Four Seasons” set to Vivaldi’s famous violin concerto; and “Go West.”

Their current tour takes them to crisscross across the United States with only two stops in New Mexico. They will be traveling to Socorro from Arkansas and then, after Las Vegas, on to California.

“The show is physically demanding and the demands of touring to a different city nearly every day are also part of the challenge,” said Battlestein. “We sleep on the bus while traveling overnight about half of the time!

“The dancers are very disciplined about working out, warming down, eating healthy and getting enough rest. They really are professional artist/athletes and they know that their ability to make a living depends on taking care of their bodies and minds.”

If you want to catapult your understanding of what the human body is capable of and what imagination can conjure, be sure to see this show. You are sure to agree it is awesome and amazing. Local sponsors of this event are A-1 Quality Redi-Mix, and NM Tech Undergraduate and Graduate Student Associations. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and $5 for children; free to New Mexico Tech students, with discounts for season members. To buy tickets and for more information, visit nmt.edu/pas or call 575-835-5688.

Gwen Roath for NMT PAS