On Friday evening as part of an intensive Dancin’ Oxford week of events, JamesWiltonDance presented The Four Seasons before a packed auditorium, preceded by a lively ‘curtain raiser’ by a dozen local students who had attended a company workshop. Choreographers and performers James Wilton and Sarah Jane Taylor have created a truly immersive dance work, with designs by Vibeke Andersen, to Vivaldi’s music as recomposed by Max Richter with extensions by Michal Wojtas. The entire audience seemed to hold its breath from the first moment, as Taylor slowly emerged like an amoeba from a chrysalis, while the light gently glowed and dimmed, suggesting the passing of day and night.
Taylor and Wilton seemed to move in perfect unison, using every part of their bodies to support themselves, creating the illusion that they were drifting in space. Embracing, carrying, catching, and holding each other, they sometimes seemed to swim in the air, opening up to the warmth of the sun. Their arms were like slowly beating wings when they carried one another, back-to-back, and the mysterious globe that descended from above like the moon seemed to draw them as if they were the tides of the sea. They danced alongside the score rather than slavishly following it, yet when they stood vertically, close together, there was an almost Baroque formality that echoed colours in the music. The choreography carried ideas that it is impossible fully to capture in words, reminding us of the overwhelming extent of the cosmos, and our tiny part in it.
Maggie Watson
11th March 2023
Oxford Dance Writers 