Featured production / A four-part work
Four films made from performance, poetry, projected image and sound. From Summer to Spring, the year holds labour, memory, loss and the stubborn possibility of beginning again.
4 Seasons / Research mapFollow the year around the world.Explore the map
Four seasons / one turning worldVivaldi’s The Four Seasons was a musical starting point. The seasonal structure became a way to hold research into climate, land, labour, memory and care alongside poetry and movement. In each chapter, beauty and danger share the same landscape.
We begin in the heat of Summer, follow what Autumn carries, pass through Winter’s darkest stretch, and return with Spring to the possibility of beginning again. What has happened stays with us as the year turns.
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The gold of summer becomes harder to hold. Harvest and childhood play share the frame with extreme heat, hard labour, thirst and movement across borders. Its beauty makes what is at stake more visible.
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Autumn turns towards the things people carry. Olive trees, harvest and the idea of home become ways to speak about land, inheritance, girlhood and exile. The roots remain, even when a journey away changes the meaning of return.
Watch on YouTubeWinter brings the cycle to its most exposed point. Cold and darkness reveal unequal access to shelter and power, the damage of war and the pressure of borders. Memory and witness remain alive; return is possible without pretending the damage can be undone.
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Spring returns with rain, food, voices and the rituals of gathering. Its rivers can nourish and flood; its promise of renewal is hopeful but uncertain. Beginning again is something people make together through care and ordinary work.
Film will appear hereBehind 4 Seasons
Before the four films, there were pages of research, lines of poetry, colour tests, and a room full of fabric, masks and projected light. These are some of the pieces that found their way into the work.
Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons gave us a musical starting point. From there, the research moved through climate, land, labour, migration, memory and the small rituals of everyday life. A first stage sketch put those worlds in the same room.
A landscape can be a workplace, a memory, a source of food and a claim to home. Its changes reach the women and communities who care for it. The films travel from Summer through Autumn and Winter, ending in Spring; each season changes what the next can mean.
SummerHeat enters the field, the home and the body. Harvest, labour, childhood and thirst sit beside its gold.
AutumnOlive trees and the harvest lead us towards land, inheritance, leaving and the lives carried away from home.
WinterCold exposes the unevenness of shelter, power and safety. Memory holds its place through darkness.
SpringWater returns with both promise and risk. Food, gathering, dance and care make room for another beginning.
The poems grew alongside the research. Spoken in several languages, they move between intimate memories and the wider world. Their words deserve space beyond the films, where you can pause and read at your own pace.
Read the four poems
We tested a palette for each season, then carried it into makeup, fabric, painted masks and antler headpieces. The details changed under the projector: a leaf cast a shadow, a painted face caught a different colour, a costume moved with the dancer.
Fields, rivers, streets and skies were projected into the performance space. The performers moved through them; the camera caught the meeting of bodies, images and shadows. That is where the sketches and handmade pieces became the films.
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Research, poetry, movement, making and filming all passed through different hands. This is part of the team who brought the four seasons into the room.
With thanks to South London Theatre for the costumes and Hackney Showroom for the performance space.
