Show your cultured side with Valentine's offerings from the fine arts

Looking for a way to infuse passion into Valentine's Day this year? Moses Pendleton, artistic director and choreographer of Dance Company Momix promises "a very sensual, very powerful" performance that is sure to "create an interesting night out" with Passion, a multi-media performace featuring five dancers. According to Pendleton, Passion, which will be performed at the Carolina Theatre on Valentine's Day, might even heat up the relationship of two people who see it together. While the show's music is based on Peter Gabriel's score from Martin Scorcese's movie, The Last Temptation, Momix's interpretation is not really about religion; the only reference to the last temptation is through the use of images. Instead, the performance, which fuses body forms with graphic art, is about the human body and how it is relevant to the natural world. Just as the show is atypical in theme, it is also not a typical modern dance performance. Momix creates a surreal "hallucinatory" experience with its use of a screen that constantly dissolves images into one another. Pendleton likens the effect of the screen to looking at your reflection in the window and seeing a car pass at the same time, creating a third image. He also uses particular lighting and costumes to create magical tricks because he believes people go to the theater in order to escape. Pendleton said his dream growing up in Vermont was to be on a downhill ski team, and he has always felt a connection with the athletic world, leading him to the job of choreographing the Lake Placid Olympics closing ceremony. His athletic background is evident in the athletic, pagan-like and celestial movements of the dancers, he said. The choreographer's appreciation for the "power of the human body" caused the Carolina Theatre to warn the public of the show's "adult content" on its website Pendleton said "there is some partial nuditiy in the show," although it takes place behind a screen. "It's not a kiddie show," Pendleton said, "but students would get into Passion."