The Four Seasons
World première: 10 March 2018
Semperoper Ballett,
Semperoper Dresden, Germany
Event information: www.semperoper.de
Choreography and Concept David Dawson
Music Max Richter
Set Design Eno Henze
Costume Design Yumiko Takeshima
Light Design Bert Dalhuysen
Assistant to the Choreographer Raphaël Coumes – Marquet
Dawson’s ballets are highly complex and interconnected intellectual interpenetration with the aesthetic-emotional expression of dance.
The spherical music of Max Richter’s recomposed Vivaldi: The Four Seasons inspired Dawson to create something about the cycle of life. An ensemble piece for sixteen dancers that is set within a constantly changing display of shape, colour and light.
This work can be experienced as a bridge between the past and the present, or an answer from the future to the past. A journey that is shaped by the bodies of the dancers, held within a space assigned to each of the four elements.The focus is always on the human being, suspended in a state of constant movement, creating timeless moments within the ever changing dimensions of perception, energy and possibility – between life and death, always knowing and never knowing.
The aesthetic approach is always born out of profoundly human feelings: “I always associate the change of the seasons with the journey of life – from birth to death, beginning and end, and in between everything human: joy, love, fear, and loss.”
— David Dawson
