Abraham Jonathan Wolken (July 12, 1949 – June 13, 2010) was one of the original dancers and a co-founder of

Pilobolus ''Pilobolus'' is a genus of fungi that commonly grows on herbivore dung. Life cycle The life cycle of ''Pilobolus'' begins with a black sporangium that has been discharged onto a plant substrate such as grass. A herbivorous animal such as a ho ...

dance company in 1971, which ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' in his obituary calls "one of the most popular modern-dance companies in the world". Wolken served as one of the company's five original artistic directors. Wolken was born on July 12, 1949, in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, son of biophysicist Jerome Wolken. He attended

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Philosophy (1971). While attending Dartmouth, he took a

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

class taught by Alison Becker Chase. Together with

Moses Pendleton Moses Pendleton (born March 28, 1949) is a choreographer, dancer and the artistic director of MOMIX. MOMIX is a dance company that he formed in 1981 as an offshoot of the Pilobolus, which he had co-founded while a senior at Dartmouth College in 1 ...

, a fellow student in the Dartmouth dance class, Robby Barnett, and Lee Harris, Wolken formed the Pilobolus dance company, which was named for a fungus that shoots its spores as much as several feet away, having seen a demonstration from his father during his youth. Chase and

Martha Clarke Martha Clarke (born June 3, 1944) is an American theater director and choreographer noted for her multidisciplinary approach to theatre, dance, and opera productions. Her best-known original work is ''The Garden of Earthly Delights'' (1984, re-im ...

joined the group in 1973; and

Michael Tracy TRACY 168 (born Michael Tracy in 1958) is an American graffiti artist. He pioneered the art form known as Wildstyle. Tracy 168 came to be known as one of the most influential graffiti and street artists of all time, as variations of Wild Style wri ...

was added the following year, replacing Lee Harris.Fox, Margalit
"Jonathan Wolken, a Founder of Pilobolus, Dies at 60"
''

'', June 15, 2010. Accessed July 5, 2010. Clarke left the group in 1978 and Pendleton in 1983, each going off to form dance companies of their own. With almost no practical experience in dance, the group developed its own unique visual slapstick style. A review by dance critic

Anna Kisselgoff Anna Kisselgoff (born 12 January 1938) is a dance critic and cultural news reporter for ''The New York Times''. She began at the ''Times'' as a dance critic and cultural news reporter in 1968, and became its Chief Dance Critic in 1977, a role she h ...

of ''The Times'' in 1971 said the troupe's enthusiasm "suggest an interest in dance that can only be applauded", noting their "amazing physical fearlessness, humor, inventiveness and unselfconsciousness", creating "witty and theatrical shapes" and "kinetic gags" using their body movements and groupings. This early performance evidenced the Pilobolus style that would last for decades that used the movements of the human body and interlinkings between members to create a form of kinetic art. Wolken ended his dance career several years after the troupe was formed but continued to choreograph performances including "Pseudopodia" (1973), "B'zyrk" (2007), and "Razor: Mirror" (2008). His final production, "Hitched", began performances in summer 2010 during the company's annual month-long series at the

Joyce Theater The Joyce Theater (“The Joyce") is a 472-seat dance performance venue located in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The building opened in 1941 as the Elgin Theater, a movie house, and was gut-renovated and reconfigured in 1981-82 to re ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and were dedicated to his memory.Macaulay, Alastair
"Feeling Right at Home in Unfamiliar Territory"
''

'', June 28, 2010. Accessed July 5, 2010. Wolken choreographed a production of '' A Selection'' in conjunction with its author

Maurice Sendak Maurice Bernard Sendak (; June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012) was an American author and illustrator of children's books. He became most widely known for his book ''Where the Wild Things Are'', first published in 1963.Turan, Kenneth (October 16, 200 ...

that was the subject of a 2002 documentary by

Mirra Bank Mirra Bank is a director of film, television, and theater. She is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures. Her documentary, “Last Dance,” was short-listed for an Academy Award. Variety called Bank's documentary, "T ...

. A resident of

Washington, Connecticut Washington is a rural town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in the New England region of the United States. The population was 3,646 at the 2020 census. Washington is known for its picturesque countryside, historic architecture, and active civi ...

, Wolken died in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

's Mount Sinai Hospital at age 60 on June 13, 2010, from complications of

stem cell treatments Stem-cell therapy is the use of stem cells to treat or prevent a disease or condition. , the only established therapy using stem cells is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. This usually takes the form of a bone-marrow transplantation, but ...

for his

myelofibrosis Primary myelofibrosis (PMF) is a rare bone marrow blood cancer. It is classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a type of myeloproliferative neoplasm, a group of cancers in which there is growth of abnormal cells in the bone marrow. ...

.Staff
"Jonathan Wolken dies at 60; a co-founder and artistic director of Pilobolus Dance Theater"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', June 17, 2010. Accessed July 5, 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolken, Jonathan 1949 births 2010 deaths American choreographers Dartmouth College alumni Deaths from blood disease People from Washington, Connecticut People from Pittsburgh