Great as a Dance Performance, Confusing as a Play by Ryan LaPointe

On Tuesday, March 17, we saw A Rite, performed at the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance, located on Williams College campus in Williamstown, Massachusetts.  A Rite is the product of seamless collaboration between Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company.  It is an exploration of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which was incredibly controversial in its time, causing a riot in the audience on opening night.

Because A Rite was performed by a combination of a theatre company and a dance company, I was initially unsure where it would fall on the spectrum between a theatre performance and a dance performance.  I discovered that it leaned heavily towards a dance performance.  While there were several monologues and a couple of dialogues throughout the piece, the main focus was on the dance numbers.

I was impressed and entertained by the many dance numbers, but the story being conveyed by the dances was completely lost on me.  At one point in the performance, I recognized that the red-haired girl was being sacrificed, but I was only able to gather this because I had prior knowledge that someone was supposed to be sacrificed.  That was the only point during the performance when I had any idea what was going on in the story being told.

There were some numbers in the performance when music was produced solely with vocal noises made by the dancers.  To be clear, they were not singing; the variety of noises they made would not sound melodious per se.  However, combining these noises and adding a rhythm resulted in very interesting and good music.

During the few dialogues that the show contained, the cast sat on chairs downstage in a row facing the audience.  In these dialogues, they would often break the fourth wall—and sometimes mock the audience—with phrases like, “It's hard to listen.  Listening is hard,” “You don't care about the audience,” and, “Well, this is my job, and I need a paycheck.”  I found these dialogues to be the most humorous part of the performance.

All considered, I would recommend this performance of A Rite, albeit I was completely unable to follow the plot of the show.  I highly enjoyed the excellent dances, and I was amused by the often comedic monologues and dialogues throughout the show.  The content of the performance is more than capable of standing on its own, without an understanding of plot or deeper meaning.