A small but excited audience crowded into the Patricelli ’92 Theater last Friday for what turned out to be a fascinating work of dance-theater. Dewey Dell, a young Italian company formed by three siblings and their friend with an interest in the interaction of various art forms, performed the U.S. premiere of its piece “à elle vide,” an electrifying and sometimes startlingly grotesque exploration of two character portraits.

Teodora and Agata Castellucci, sisters and the main performers in the company, depict the characters of a Red Rooster and White Scorpion, respectively. The piece, the title of which was translated loosely by the company as “to the empty she,” explores the void between the two figures, dramatized in their contrasting movement styles: Teodora’s Rooster is fast, edgy, and almost frenetic, barely in control, while Agata’s Scorpion is slow and deliberate, focusing intently on single points. Each has a solo introduction before a final, climactic pas de deux. The piece also features the original music of the pair’s brother, Demetrio Castellucci (who also goes by his DJ title Black Fanfare), and the lighting of Eugenio Resta, the friend of the siblings who rounds out the simple, four-person company. The group met at the Stoa, a school for rhythmic movement study in its native Cesena, Italy.

Stylistically, Dewey Dell’s pieces seem unbeautiful, violent, and jerky, emphasizing repeated motions like chops, stamps, and violent head bobbing. Eugenio’s lights flicker, flash, and sizzle in keeping with the frantic energy of the Rooster’s solo. Demetrio’s music has an almost tribal feel, with many found sounds and pulsing, heavy, grinding undertones.

The collective effect, though, is beautiful rather than hideous. In some ways it belongs to the artistic idea of the grotesque: the dancers are strangely attractive despite the fact that they conform to none of our traditional notions of what makes dance beautiful.

Unlike many companies brought to the University by the Outside the Box Theater Series, however, Dewey Dell did not head off campus immediately following the performance. The company has remained in residence, staying in Middletown and attending several classes. They have also led a workshop with students from the Theater Department focusing on one of their in-development pieces called “Grave,” the Italian word for “serious” or “heavy.”

This Friday, moving from the ’92 to the much better equipped Center for the Arts (CFA) Theater, Dewey Dell will be performing the U.S. premiere of another piece, “Cinquanta Urlanti Quarenta Ruggenti Sessanta Stridenti.” That mouthful translates as “Furious Fifties, Roaring Forties, Shrieking Sixties,” and refers to the proper names of groups of trans-Atlantic winds. For this slightly more complex piece, Teodora and Agata will be joined onstage by Sara Angelini, a dancer and fellow Stoa alumna.

If you have time on Friday night, stop by the CFA Theater to take in the work of these ground-breaking young artists. And if you see strange (and very fit-looking) new students with Italian accents in one of your classes, stop and introduce yourself. You never know, but it seems possible that you just might be talking to the next big thing in dance.