BRYGGEN brings together four contemporary composers who each explore space, resonance and movement in their own unique way. The music of Caroline Shaw plays with expectations and unexpected colours of sound, while Arvo Pärt invites stillness and attentive listening. Thomas Adès lets the music flow between restlessness and lyricism, before Wojciech Kilar closes the evening with rhythmic energy and a nod to folk traditions.
A concert where contemplation and intensity meet.

Vivaldi reimagined with dance and endless patterns

Just as the seasons in nature shift and return, new interpretations can transform classical works. In this concert choreography, the boundaries between dance and music dissolve. BRYGGEN and choreographer
Michiel Vandevelde add a further layer to the rich texture Max Richter introduced in his 2012 reimagining
of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Richter’s score is performed from memory by the musicians of BRYGGEN, led by violinist Jolente De Maeyer, who move across the stage in continuous patterns. A solitary dancer weaves among them, at times contradicting the music, at others intensifying it.

The choreography follows the same compositional logic that underpins Richter’s reinterpretation of
Vivaldi. Across earlier works such as Ends of Worlds (2019), Neuer Neuer Tanz (2019), The Goldberg Variations (2020) and Dances of Death (2021), Vandevelde has examined dance history as a living archive. This interest meets Richter’s own dialogue with Vivaldi. Each season is linked to a distinct choreographic
lineage: spring draws on Isadora Duncan, summer on Anna Halprin, autumn on Pina Bausch, and winter on
Trisha Brown.

The electronic music for the prologue and epilogue is composed by Didem Coşkunseven. Together, these moments frame the cycle of birth and death, and the passage in between. The performance reflects on time itself: on how styles and forms, discourses and vocabularies constantly change, yet remain deeply interconnected.

By rethinking stage presence, by moving freely through the space and performing from memory, both the
dancer and musicians challenge the conventions of the concert format. What emerges is a shared inquiry
into how classical works can be lived, embodied and reimagined, not as fixed monuments, but as a living
practice shaped by movement, adaptation and the pleasure of continual reinvention.

CREDITS

concept, musical direction, solo violin: Jolente De Maeyer
choreography, concept, scenography, lighting design: Michiel Vandevelde
dance: Amanda Barrio Charmelo
musical performance: BRYGGEN – Bruges Strings
music: Max Richter – Recomposed: The Four Seasons, Didem Coşkunseven – Traveler on a Winter’s Night, part 1 and 2
costumes: Milk of Lime
production: BRYGGEN – Bruges Strings

_{This production was realized with the support of the Belgian Federal Government’s tax shelter system via uFund}