A Life in Four Seasons review – dancers of all ages have spring in their steps

Regent’s Park Open Air theatre, London
Performers representing the four seasons of life – and a wide range of styles – dance to a ravey remix of Vivaldi

It was a great idea: a dance through the four seasons of life, with performers whose own ages range from spring to winter, set to a reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Neat. It’s amazing to see older dancers who can bring all the textures of their experience to the stage. But the thing with such a wide-ranging cast, who all specialise in different styles, is that the dance ends up being somewhere in the middle: everyone can do it but it doesn’t play to anyone’s strengths. The movement lands in a mildly street dance-influenced zone, locked into a basic 4/4 feel. It’s when you get a glimpse of a dancer’s signature – the brilliant Michael Naylor having a rave-up/meltdown in a club scene, for example – that you think, “Oh, this is what we were missing.”

Choreography is by the American Alexzandra Sarmiento, who works mainly in musicals and as a movement director in theatre, alongside director Tinuke Craig. The set-up is a trio of dancers for each season, always dressed in blue, pink and orange, who we come to realise represent the head, heart and gut of a person, although that’s not so clear at the start. The set does have boxes stamped with “HEAD”, “HEART” and “GUT”, but (to me, anyway) it wasn’t obvious because that didn’t seem connected with the dancing.

For the soundtrack, Vivaldi is chopped and spliced by DJ Walde, known for his funky hip-hop scores for ZooNation Dance Company. Back in 2012, composer Max Richter did his own genius rewrite of the Four Seasons, which has since been endlessly used in dance, and it is a mountain of a challenge to take on the same piece. Walde’s version mainly adds in some thumping beats side-by-side with the strings. At a couple of key points, such as that club scene, the Vivaldi is reduced to a sample and the beats take over, and suddenly everyone feels much more in their comfort zones.

Ultimately, there is not a strong enough sense of story or character or purpose to carry this show. It’s fantastic that Regent’s Park is committed to commissioning dance, to prove to general audiences that dance doesn’t have to have songs or script to be great theatre. But if you’re going to convert people, it has to be really, really good.

• At Open Air theatre, London, until 14 June
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