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28 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2014 THIS WEEK CULTURE | TV | FILM CINEMA LISTINGS FOOD | WHAT'S ON THIS WEEK Dance Divine 'DIVINA' is another ambitious per- formance by the Naupaca Dance Factory, whose 'The Death of Snow White' (2012) and 'Alice's Adven- tures Under Ground' (2011) both set the bar for contemporary dance in Malta. This time the Gozitan troupe intersperse dance, monologues, lyr- ics, and a final tableaux, all set to inventive music, with considerable visual flair. Ostensibly inspired by Dante's Divina Commedia, the piece takes on a surprising life of its own. The dancers weave in and out of Dante's psychic landscapes – the grandeur of Virgil, the torture and ultimate release of Dante's relation- ship with Beatrice, the suffering in Inferno, and the strange stillness of Naupaca's Paradiso. Some of the story is told in the sets, designed by Adrian Abela, well crafted to en- hance the drama on stage. As part of a clever promotional campaign across social media, Charles Paul Azzopardi's collection of striking photographs primed the audience for what was to come. Rather than simply enact incidents from Dante's narrative in a sequence of vignettes, we were brought into a retelling with no obvious centre. In a series of duets, solos and groups, Joe- line Tabone has created layers of idi- osyncratic movement that captivate the mind's eye. Tabone is an uncom- mon choreographer, with the special ability to take her troupe's raw talent and infuse it with her own secret vi- sion of the body. Divina's dancing is hauntingly original, crawling be- neath the surface of Dante's epic. The suffering damned are evoked with wild contortions of shuffling figures, roiling and running, caught up in the power of their stories. Mu- sic, composed and produced by the prodigious Mario Sammut, encrusts the performance with extraordinary noises – sounds that sometimes barely murmur above the dancers' footsteps, and at other times com- mand centre stage. The collabora- tion between Tabone's extremes of physicality and Sammut's auditory fantasies is pitch perfect. The first act is wreathed in gloom, lit by intermittent flashes of Sergey Kheylik's turn as Dante, and Franc- esco Mariottini's Virgil. Mariot- tini's performance had a necessary dignity, shimmering with athletic control. Kheylik wore a scarlet tunic (costumes by Matthew Pandolfino, rather than longtime Naupaca col- laborator Luke Azzopardi) and controlled the stage, compelled by Sammut's atmospheric score. As the theatre began to fill with light, Kheylik was engulfed in a rippling sea of dancers, all arched backs and craned necks; hands fluttering like birds, torsos strained. Tabone is nev- er easy on her dancers, and the sheer exhibition of stamina at a Naupaca performance is as praise worthy as the technical ability on display. One can't help wish that more had been made of Deborah Agius, whose role as Beatrice meant she was only really felt at the very end of the final act. Her grace filled the dance, a worthy counterpoint to Kheylik. Playing with its mixture of night- mare and dream, writer and nar- rator Maria Theuma has created a compelling reinterpretation of Dan- te's narrative. One elegantly crafted monologue begins, "The devil is not a metaphor, Dante". All surly shades of Marla (Palahniuk's 'Fight Club') and Emily Bronte, with an unexpect- ed (unintended?) visual reference to Princess Leia in the final Paradiso section of the performance, Theu- ma's character almost dominates the show. The effect is not entirely con- vincing: one felt there was enough communicative urgency in the danc- ers themselves, interacting with the music, expanding and contracting at the edges of the stage. The final act, Dante dissolving into the divine and Beatrice's reification, climaxes in a breathless silhouette. Framed by a cacophony of shatter- ing, crashing sounds that slowly di- minish and fade, it felt like Theuma and her creative collaborators were gesturing beyond Dante's beatific vi- sion to some inscrutable, transcend- ent oblivion. It would be interesting if Tabone's choreography encour- aged us to join her further into this unknown. What would a Naupaca perform- ance be like, unencumbered by the reassurances of narrative parceled up in text, literary reference, or plot? Perhaps that is what hangs behind each performance, an echo patiently asserting itself like Beatrice, wait- ing to be born into more substantial life than as a mere parasite in im- aginary landscapes. We may yet be invited to join the Naupaca Dance Factory somewhere quite startling, only hinted at in the beauty of 'Snow White', in the whimsy of 'Alice' – into a world of movement, set free of meaning. Following its premiere at the Mediterranean Conference Centre last Saturday, PETER FARRUGIA reviews DIVINA, Naupaca Dance Factory's ambitious adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHARLES PAUL AZZOPARDI Sergey Kheylik as Dante Graceful: Deborah Agius as Beatrice Psychic landscapes: Inferno