This past Tuesday afternoon Post:ballet premiered a new film on its YouTube channel. Lasting less than a quarter hour, “Seasons: Summer” used the San Francisco skyline as the setting for Robin Dekker’s latest choreographic achievement. The ballet followed the three short movements of Antonio Vivaldi’s “Summer” concerto from his Four Seasons collection; but the middle movement was composed by Anna Meredith, taken from her reflection on Vivaldi entitled ANNO: Four Seasons. This amounted to her take on the Phrygian half cadence, a chord progression that intervenes between two fast movements (Johann Sebastian Bach’s third “Brandenburg” concerto is the most familiar example), allowing the performer(s) an opportunity for extended improvisation. Each of the three movements was given its own title: “Heat,” “Haze,” and “Thunder.”
Equally important was the camera work by cinematographer (and co-director) Benjamin Tarquin. Because Dekker’s choreography involved a generous share of high-energy ensemble dancing, Tarquin realized that there were many opportunities to capture the geometry of the dancing with overhead shots:
Screen shot from the video being discussed
A single costume was designed by Mia J. Chong for both the male and female dancers, suggesting that the flow of full skirts (shown above) carried more signification than the group, duo, and solo sections of the choreography. It is also worth noting that, while the duo and solo passages reinforced the choreography with a sense of distinct personalities, it was the intensity of the group designs (particularly as viewed through Tarquin’s camera work) that seized and sustained attention over the course of this relatively brief “Vivaldi experience.”
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