Choreographers: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga
On a May evening when the possibility of experiencing all four seasons in one day is a realistic prospect, watching Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Radouan Mriziga’s dance interpretation of Vivaldi’s famous concerti is, like the annually changing climate, beautiful and frustrating, exuberant, vivid and sometimes slow-moving.
Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, performed at Sadler’s Wells, is brought to life by a recording of violinist Amandine Beyer accompanied by Gli Incogniti, who capture the intricacies of Vivaldi’s annual cycle, yet the long periods of dancing in silence as well as the jagged intra-seasonal transitions are as unsatisfying as a stormy May day.
The first 30-minutes of Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione is the most unvarying, opening with a long light show designed by the choreographers with several minutes of flashing bars before the dancers appear through the gloom. As ‘Autunno’ is announced, the audience is bathed in burnt copper light as a soloist (Boštjan Antončič) moves rapidly around the stage, covering a great deal of the floor while exploring height and width as the choreography fills different dimensions. This section becomes highly repetitive when the three other dancers join in, all doing different movements for a time before coming into formation. With the occasional horse whinny and bird call delivered by the performers, the impression of autumn feels scant.
‘Inverno’ is no more inspiring in this early part of the dance as the performers struggle to synchronise, one always slightly out of step with the others and not quite finding the same lines. But as José Paulo dos Santos and Lav Crnčević step forward to tap dance a rhythm, the beat of ‘Primavera’ emerges from their feet, a lovely and well-executed touch that signals the moment this piece finally bursts into life. Here, De Keersmaeker and Mriziga design tighter line formations in which the dancers move backwards in a calm but hypnotic rhythm, occasionally flinging their arms aloft as though distributing petals as a stronger party feeling emerges.
In ‘Estate’ (summer), that feeling grows strong with the men running in concentric circles, exploring expansiveness in their limbs and pirouetting round and round and round with a lightness that matches Vivaldi’s composition. Balanced against its occasional melancholy moments, it is Nassim Baddag’s time to shine with a sequence of breakdance moves that filter through the remainder of the dance, offering far more hip-hop content than the whole of the Breakin’ Convention launch show last weekend. Baddag is a different kind of dancer from his colleagues, and while he lacks energy early in the dance, here in his comfort zone, his precision and skill are clear.
De Keersmaeker and Mriziga conclude the piece with a return to Autumn and Winter – inserting a light and comic skating sequence which proves a brief and playful highlight – offering far more insight into these repeated seasons than the lengthy opening segment. Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione proves a mixed evening, much as the seasons of the year revive and disappoint in equal measure, but the final act, with its climate change message as the blackness consumes the seasons, is a pointed statement to take back into the warm May night.
Runs until 09 May 2026
