La Natura Delle Cose review: A dance masterpiece chronicling the life of one character

Dublin Dance Festival present Virgilio Sieni's dance inspired by a Lucretius poem. Photo: Paulo Porto 

Abbey Theatre, Dublin Dance Festival

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Poetry about the big picture can be epic. Roman philosopher Lucretius took a stab at it in the first century BC with De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things). It finds Venus, a goddess of the day, secularised into a kind of Mother Nature who inspires an old-age brew of meteorology, sensory analysis and - believe it or not - atom theory. 

Similar is the ambition of Virgilio Sieni’s 2008 dance masterpiece, staged here for Dublin Dance Festival. Taking inspiration from Lucretius’s poem, it has the task of showing virtually everything. 

In a realm of pure diaphanousness, where bodies appear and vanish through translucent curtains, Venus arrives as a young girl. Without much strength or coordination, she is dutifully borne aloft by four dancers, guiding her like guardians. 

The absorbing quintet ushers the character, rising and slanting in wave-like motions, between gestures of lucidity and awareness. It seems that Sieni is interested in vignettes of dawning consciousness, meticulously depicted by Ramona Caia, Jari Boldrini, Maurizio Giunti, Andrea Palumbo and Nicola Cisternino. 

Having found her balance, Caia’s Venus transforms into an infant. An extraordinary mask gives her an expression of nascent curiosity. Her movement has become showy and calculated, as if she just discovered self-awareness. Most impressive is the impossible detail of Caia’s excellent performance, woven from infinitesimal shifts and tempos. Chronicling Venus’s entire life, she shows a body full of youthful enquiry, before it fades towards twilight. 

Along the way La Natura Delle Cose toggles between oasis and calamity, like the score of Francseco Giomi’s music - its pleasing cadences interrupted by loud drums - or the dawn-like warmth of the stage lighting cooling to a purple dusk.

When we find Venus in her elder years, she is red hot in sequins but physically fragile. Having followed her in finding her first steps, it’s affecting to see her lose them.

Though the rigour of the movement could resemble a sweeping portrayal of human life, confirming all that there is to see, Sieni knows well that the unknowable also matters. This comes through in stunning images. Whether it is the sight of a gigantic hand reaching in from the cosmos, or the arrival of an otherworldly creature from beyond a veil, these mysteries of the universe are also a part of this strange life. 

Run concluded.