Choreographer Moses Pendleton will bring his illusion-based dance company MOMIX to Greece in December 2026 to stage their production ALICE for the first time. The American artistic director confirmed the upcoming performances to Greek news website Newsbeast ahead of the company's winter tour.
The production will run at the Christmas Theater in Athens from 8 to 13 December 2026, before moving to the Thessaloniki Concert Hall from 16 to 20 December 2026. Advance tickets for both venues are available on more.com. Prices range from 30 euros for Zone D, 40 euros for Zone C, 50 euros for Zone B, and 60 euros for Zone A, to 70 euros for VIP seating.
Pendleton founded MOMIX in 1980, earning international acclaim for blending contemporary dance, circus acrobatics, and visual illusion. The production draws on Lewis Carroll's 1865 fantasy classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, marking the first time the company has presented the complete work in Greece.
Reinventing Lewis Carroll for the stage
Pendleton told Newsbeast he chose Carroll's story because Alice falls into a world where anything can happen. She faces impossible situations yet presses on to make sense of them. Pendleton said he has always been drawn to that mix of innocence, curiosity, and surreal absurdity, noting that Carroll's licence for total nonsense is particularly useful when creating a MOMIX show.
Rather than replicating every detail of the book, the company titled the show simply ALICE to keep her journey at the centre. Pendleton said the concise title leaves room for surprises as the company follows her into an unfamiliar realm.
Audiences will see Alice grow, shrink, multiply, and wander through a world where little behaves normally. Carroll's familiar characters appear, though Pendleton noted they will not look exactly as people remember them. The production features transformations, strange creatures, humour, and visual surprises, designed to make spectators feel as though they have fallen into a dream with no obvious exit.
Summing up the work, Pendleton described ALICE as a curious girl in an unusual dream world where nothing remains stable for long. He also suggested the production could be seen as Lewis Carroll meeting MOMIX and falling down the rabbit hole together.
Live optical illusions without digital effects
MOMIX treats the human body as raw material for a visual composition rather than an instrument for executing steps. The company combines dance with circus acrobatics, acting, music, and pantomime. Instead of playing standard characters, the dancers act as architects of illusion, turning themselves into landscapes, physical objects, and weather phenomena.
The production relies entirely on live physical performance, using no video projections or digital effects. Every illusion is created in real time by the dancers on stage, producing what Pendleton described as a shared collective hallucination rather than a conventional stage show.
Completing ALICE took months of experimentation and discovery. Pendleton said he begins with visual images rather than fixed steps. The troupe tests concepts, discards failures, and uncovers unexpected ideas, enduring frustration, laughter, and occasional small miracles.
Before taking the stage, Pendleton tells his dancers to watch out for each other, trust their preparation, and enjoy themselves. He reminds them that the audience does not know what was supposed to happen. If something goes wrong, he tells them not to advertise it, but to carry on so the mistake looks intentional.
From a Vermont farm to Pilobolus and MOMIX
Pendleton traces his creative vision to growing up on a farm in Vermont. He did not dream of becoming a dancer, spending his youth skiing and exploring varied rural interests. Dance entered his life by chance following a skiing accident while studying at Dartmouth College, when he took a dance class for rehabilitation.
Fascinated by the possibilities of the human body rather than traditional dance, Pendleton began creating movements tailored to his classmates' bodies. Those experiments produced the strange, interlocking shapes that became the hallmark of Pilobolus, the company he helped found.
Pendleton said his farm upbringing still guides his work, describing nature as a complex choreography of birds in flight, stationary rocks, and shifting seasons. Everything moves, competes, attracts, and escapes, teaching him to observe closely and bring those observations to the stage.
Comparing his companies, Pendleton described Pilobolus as a youthful experiment in discovering what bodies could do when joined together. With MOMIX, he focused on theatrical illusion, exploring what bodies could become when merged with light, music, costumes, and props. He noted that he remains drawn to strange ideas.
Artistic philosophy and returning to Greece
On the subject of physical limits, Pendleton argued that gravity is the only constant barrier. He maintained that combining the human body with light, music, and props removes creative boundaries, adding that he prefers testing untried concepts rather than worrying about what cannot be done.
Addressing age, Pendleton acknowledged that the body follows its own timetable, but insisted that dance is about imagination, curiosity, and the joy of movement. At 77, he still exercises, swims, and creates choreography, observing that being a choreographer allows him to devise ideas that younger dancers execute.
Pendleton welcomed his return to Greece after years away, praising the country's ancient heritage in theatre, mythology, and storytelling. He described Greece as a place where imagination has been taken seriously for thousands of years, noting that the Greek landscape and light hold deep personal appeal.
He also commended Greek audiences for their enthusiasm and openness to non-verbal performance. Because MOMIX does not rely on spoken dialogue, viewers connect directly with the imagery and emotion. Pendleton said he particularly enjoys hearing laughter at unexpected moments, taking it as a sign that the audience is conversing with the performance in its own way.
