Photo by Kimberly Maroon

It was, by every definition of the term, a soaring performance.

For two days in October, members of Bandaloop defied gravity and danced on the outside walls of the new Pendleton West music pavilion, in celebration of the public opening of the renovated arts building. Secured by rigging to the roof, the California troupe mesmerized audiences as they walked the walls, pushing off to spin and soar in intricate choreography.

The festivities also included a theater performance, lectures, and the world premiere of !hope, a setting of an e.e. cummings poem by Grammy-award-winning composer Augusta Read Thomas commissioned for the Wellesley College Chamber Singers.

“I could not get enough of the Bandaloop performances,” says Helen Gregory ’90, one of several College employees who attended a workshop with the dancers. “My participation in the workshop made me particularly attuned to the athleticism of the performers. It is spectacular to watch them move so beautifully and gracefully, and at the same time I kept reminding myself how very, very difficult it is to do what they do … holding themselves up sideways, and making it appear as though they are standing/dancing upright.”