Michele Rizzo's REACHING Premieres at KW Berlin, Exploring Rave as Healing Ritual

Michele Rizzo premiered his performance REACHING at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin from October 1–3, 2021. The work, presented collaboratively by KW and Julia Stoschek Collection, investigates rave culture's potential for holistic healing. Fourteen dancers in sportswear, leather, and PVC executed simple swaying motions that gradually accelerated into rhythmic stepping patterns. Choreography emphasized somatic touch, with performers gently placing hands on each other's heads, chests, and shoulders to create physical awareness. Billy Bultheel's intense electronic score and Theresa Baumgartner's lighting design, alternating between cold-white and warmer tones, heightened the atmospheric tension. The performance transformed KW's main hall into a stripped-back industrial space with two white striplights and peripheral audience seating. Rizzo's approach recasts raving—often stereotyped as deviant—as therapeutic communal activity, particularly resonant in post-lockdown contexts where physical connection was limited. The work explored maintaining individual identity within collective movement, with dancers facing different directions while maintaining lower-body unison. Audience anticipation mirrored club queues, with a black-clad bouncer controlling entry into the courtyard.