James Wilton Dance

The Four Seasons

Music: Recomposed by Max Richter, with extensions by Michal Wojtas

‘At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is…’ T.S Eliot

I love that moment when the audience starts to fill the auditorium. The outside world is brought in clinging to our clothing and in the buzz of conversation. Then the sudden hush where in the silence it is no longer ‘I’ but ‘we’ waiting in anticipation.

As the sound of birdsong fills the air our attention is drawn to the stage. There is a baby bird fallen from its nest lying curled and featherless, it is an inchoate thing. Or is it a pale embryo, barely breathing, barely there?  As the creature begins to move, angular limbs stretched reaching and curling we watch the coming of spring and the beginnings of life. The movements get faster and more intense.  A second dancer joins the first and it is evident that they are perfectly matched, totally in tune with each other; almost one. As the performance progresses, the inspired lighting, the subtly understated costumes, the flow of movement, and the dancers energy and connection create a magical, mesmerising experience.

Everything is aligned. There are so many perfectly poised moments that it is hard to write a review that can do justice to the consideration that has gone into this visually beautiful and satisfying work.

Perhaps just to echo T.S. Eliot’s words I will pick out a repeated phrase; the two dancers turned gently, with slow careful steps, heads bowed in towards each other, arms encircled as if holding between them that ‘still point’. This was a stitch in an otherwise seamless garment that for me took the work from the ethereal to something more earthy; thus holding it tightly to the corporeal and rooting it more firmly in the present.

By Anna Mortimer

Photo by Daniel Martin