Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione

‘Iconic’. ‘Classic’. ‘Canon’. So much of how we value great art is determined by the idea of what endures over time. Nowhere is this clearer than in Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, a soundscape for what was assumed to be an inviolable natural order. This enthralling production from visionary Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and Moroccan dance maker Radouan Mriziga pits the canon against climate change, creating an unforgettable encounter with music you thought you knew. 

Four incredible dancers in Boštjan Antončič, Nassim Baddag, Lav Crnčević and José Paulo dos Santos are given the daunting task of embodying the seasons, and their collapse—tracing the rhythms of birdsong, storms, blazing summers and frozen winters in the stagger, sway, and ripple of their bodies.  

Set to a recording of violinist Amandine Beyer performing Vivaldi’s seminal work and given an injection of urgency from the poem ‘We, the salvage’ by Asmaa Jama, this layered weaving of elements reveals hidden textures and unexpected emotional landscapes.  

Three centuries after The Four Seasons was first composed, Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Intervenione asks us to consider the ways in which our relationship with nature has shifted and what these once-timeless seasons mean today.