Two ballet dancers performing a complex acrobatic pose on stage, with one dancer supporting the other as the supported dancer extends her legs upward.
Two ballet dancers performing on stage in white costumes: one dancer is balanced on the other's back with legs extended upward, while the second dancer supports with arms and balance.
Two ballet dancers performing on stage, with one dancer lifted upside down by the other, during a dance performance.
Two ballet dancers performing on stage, one standing and the other bent backwards, with their hands clasped.

Choreography
Demis Volpi

Music
Antonio Vivaldi

Costume Design
Thomas Lempertz

Lighting Design
Demis Volpi

World premiere
July 23, 2016
John Cranko School
Opernhaus Stuttgart

Photos © The Stuttgart Ballet

Winter

set to Antonio Vivaldi’s Winter from The Four Seasons

Winter is set to the fourth and final violin concerto from The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi and was originally created for the John Cranko School within a full-length exploration of the seasons. Demis Volpi served as Artistic Director of this collaboration between Fabio Adorisio, Katarzyna Kozielska, Louis Stiens and himself, in which each choreographer created one season as part of a larger work.

The choreography engages with the concerto’s precision - its sharp attacks, crystalline rhythms and suspended stillness - to shape an imposing human landscape. The first movement frames winter as magnitude: structure, virtuosity and the overwhelming force of nature. In the second movement, the focus contracts into intimacy, exploring the warmth and shelter found in companionship during the cold season’s isolation. The final movement turns toward release: endurance becomes propulsion and the rigid geometry of winter begins to soften and melt.

Winter here is not merely a season but a state of tension and transition - a fragile threshold between survival and renewal.

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