The type of show you pray will never end.
Dewey Dell’s The Rite of Spring is sensational. A visual wonder, the performance explores the never-ending cycle of life and death against the backdrop of Igor Stravinsky’s dramatic scores. Through consistent experimentation with the metamorphosis of human beings, Dewey Dell has crafted an entirely original style. This is a must-see show.
There is nothing human about The Rite of Spring. Teodora and Agata Castelluci’s choreography pushes the boundaries of contemporary dance. Fusing modern and classical techniques with breaking, they have created an entirely original style perfectly suited to the intensity of Stravinsky’s scores. Their choreography is very shape-based. Individual bodies create photographic moments with the costumes and fabrics, but it is the collective shapes that are most memorable. The four dancers fit together like pieces of a puzzle to build impressive, not quite shapes, but moving creatures. It is strange and at times grotesque, yet you’ll find yourself afraid to blink because it would be a crime to miss even a moment.
The set designer, Lidia Trecento of Laboratorio scenografia Pesaro, and the costume designer, Guoda Jaruševičiūtė of Dewey Dell, deserve awards for their work on The Rite of Spring. Trecento’s set transported the audience to a whole other world, suddenly we were underground with the bugs. Dancers came crawling out of the woodwork, but in Jaruševičiūtė’s costumes they were indistinguishable from the critters they portrayed; the maggot costume was especially realistic, almost disturbingly so when paired with the dancers’ perfect embodiment of the creatures’ physicality.
The dancers of Dewey Dell are extraordinary. Teodora Castellucci, Agata Castellucci, Demetrio Castellucci, and Vito Matera are at the forefront of contemporary dance. From the opening scene, just from the movements of a worm inching across the stage, the strength and muscular control of the cast was apparent. To then have that very Modern soloist followed by a pair of exceptional breakdancers’ was genius. The b-boys were one of the highlights of the show; the speed, the complexity of their choreography, and their playfulness was mesmerizing.
A haze hung in the air, lending the theatre an eerie mystique. This haze would have been a pleasant addition to the show, had the lighting not been as dim as it was for much of the show. While I understand that it is meant to mimic lighting in underground tunnels, it hid some of the finer details and made it so that you had to strain your eyes. Apart from the haze and the occasional painfully loud section of music, there is not a fault within this show.
The Rite of Spring is a transformative experience. Life, death, change, and all that’s in between explored at its most base level. It is intelligent, flawlessly staged, energetically performed, and unnervingly realistic. Dewey Dell have created a modern day masterpiece. Get comfortable being uncomfortable and delve into the mystifying world of Dewey Dell’s The Rite of Spring.