“Alack the day,” cries Lady Capulet at the sight of her deceased daughter Juliet in William Shakespeare’s play. “She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!”

Riccardo Buscarini’s choreography Requiem for Juliet, envisioned as a sequel to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, is a reflection on the choices and forces that led to Juliet’s demise, centring chiefly on her mother Lady Capulet, played in ŻfinMalta’s rendition by Charlotte Grech.

The national dance company took to the Manoel Theatre stage between May 27 and 29 to retell the story of Juliet’s fate and her mother’s shame, its dancers clad in ethereal garb – phantasms meandering the underworld. They dance in response to music and voice in a narrative of transformation.

As the translucent shroud collapses onto the stage, Lady Capulet achieves catharsis.

Grech onstage is equally as spectral – a figure marred by grief and regret. Bereft, she reaches out to her daughter beyond the grave, offering her words written by dramaturg Mauro Barbiero for the work inspired by the original play, but when she speaks, her mouth is closed – a disconnect between her and her pain, and between who she thought she was and who she is now upon her daughter’s death.

The ŻfinMalta dancers recount Juliet’s story as though in a dreamscape, behind a translucent veil separating them from Lady Capulet. Juliet’s mother emerges and recedes onstage in between movements, interacting subtly with the ethereal figures who singularly and collectively embody her departed daughter. She moves stoically, stony faced, her emotions restrained.

We tend to emerge from ŻfinMalta productions deeply connected with the unspoken parts of ourselves

Luke Azzopardi’s costume and set design proved a strong part of the production, imbuing the dancers with the quality of immateriality. The choice to conceal the dancers’ faces, thus rendering them somewhat unrecognisable, added to the sense of liminality occupying the initial portions of the work.

Alessandro Baldessari’s electronic music was a solid choice for this work of contemporary dance. He combined this with parts of Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet, including the famous Dance of the Knights – the classical score anchoring the piece in time, while the electronic music made a home for it in the present.

Luke Azzopardi’s costume and set design proved a strong part of the production.

At last, after much rumination on her identity as mother and the responsibilities she denounced, Lady Capulet achieves catharsis. The shroud that separates her from the phantasms – the ghosts of her departed daughter – collapses thunderously. Lady Capulet can finally confront her grief and transform. She embraces the memo­ry of her daughter and accepts herself as renamed – I am no longer your mother, I am now your daughter, she says.

Now with their masks removed, the dancers, like Lady Capulet, are transformed. The work ends with Romeo and Juliet, freed from the constraints of familial impediments, rejoicing to Prokofiev’s score – the sequel ends in hope; the result of tragedy is transformation.

Charlotte Grech played the role of Lady Capulet.

Everything combines into a creation of triumphant beauty, thrilling and visceral and devastating. We tend to emerge from ŻfinMalta productions deeply connected with the unspoken parts of ourselves. In this, the highlight of the season, we have seen the company in full force.

Requiem for Juliet was supported by Istituto Italiano di Cultura La Valletta. ŻfinMalta is supported by The VBL Group and Osteopathy Malta.