HQ Review: The Big Muddy Dance Company’s premiere of “New Ritual” by Sidra Bell

A “boutique hybrid brand of prolific movement illustrators,” is how Sidra Bell of Sidra Bell Dance New York self-describes the work she creates. With this in mind, her world premiere of “New Ritual” performed by The Big Muddy Dance Company, brought to St. Louis Bell’s distinct flair for utilizing dance as way to convey the hybrid nature of our bodies. Both as individual bodies, and as collective units, moving about in this contemporary world.

As the piece commences, two duets unravel themselves on stage, one upstage left, the other downstage right. As these duets intertwine and expand, patterned lighting weaves itself among the dancers’ feet and their dim surroundings, generating an atmosphere of resolute austerity. As the piece progresses, bodies spill onto the stage as complex tableaus arise between dancers. These tableaus quickly dissipate as one moment dissolves into the next. The dancers’ bodies and the energies they inhabit are constantly in a state of transformation, inviting the viewer to transform alongside them. However, this is not an evolution that tells you outright what is changing. Instead, the piece gives space for the viewer to sink into the world that is being depicted, and discover for themselves their relationship to it.

With the title of the piece, “New Ritual,” the word “ritual” brings about ideas of tradition, or behaving in ways that have already been prescribed. But this work of course is about New Rituals. Thus, how do we re-envision our way of life once preconceived notions of religion, behavior, or systems have fallen? Perhaps by learning to cope with the obscurity of it all. An obscurity harnessed in this piece by consistently allowing an array of textures to coexist on stage. Two dancers stuck in an embrace, another dancer’s gaze glued upstage, all while two more dancers quickly revolve in place as one of them is launched repeatedly into the air. In our contemporary mindsets, ones constantly permeated by multiple realities, this persistent portrayal of a complicated stage space reflects this multifaceted way of experiencing the world. And perhaps, through this modality, Bell creates an experience in which new modes of meaning might be garnered from these seemingly disparate moments on stage.

As the slow burn of the piece softly accelerates itself towards the ending, I find myself transfixed by the subtle electricity that is generated by the dancers on stage. I am unsure of what is driving the dancers to leap, run, or crawl slowly off stage, but the collective energy of the ensemble alleviates any uncertainty I feel and transforms it into something like hypnosis. As the piece takes its final breath, lights blare into the eyes of the audience as a huddle of dancers gently march downstage. It feels as though they are looking out onto a new horizon, a horizon of imminent danger, but also one filled with futurities of hope. This new horizon, and therefore this New Ritual, is one filled with compromise, disjointedness, but also a collective spirit. A spirit that might give way for subtle triumphs to occur.

The Big Muddy Dance Company’s virtual performance of EVOLUTION will be available to stream online anytime from January 19-21, 2024. Learn more >>>