Boston Ballet: Fall Experience

Boston Ballet’s 2024-25 season has officially begun and, like this year’s New England fall foliage, it is stunning and should not be missed. Fall Experience is a program of four works by four very different choreographers and yet there is a common thread in the simplicity of the costumes and lighting in each work, which really directs one’s attention to the movement. If you have spent any time outside in New England lately between the spectacular moons, the hints or more of the Northern Lights and the fall foliage, we have an embarrassment of riches. Boston arts scene is equally rich right now with so much going on in theatre, dance, music and visual arts. Boston Ballet continues to elevate the bar for Boston’s arts scene with Fall Experience.

Boston Ballet’s Fall Experience opens with principal dancer and newly established choreographer Lia Cirio’s After. Cirio’s ability to express emotion and evoke setting through choreography is one far beyond that of a nascent choreographer. Her choices of music, lighting, staging, set design, and movement this early in her choreography career, makes me very excited for the years and works to come. After takes two dimensions and layers them until you see and feel a seemingly infinite depth.

I became very interested in paper sculptures, as my set is reminiscent of them, they are so vulnerable yet very strong and dynamic. These qualities are driving my choreography and process. Another layer of inspiration for me is the feeling of an end-of-the-world dystopian atmosphere.

Lia Cirio

Lia Cirio’s After is black and white, shadow and light, violin and piano, individual and collective. She tells a story while also tapping into universal truths. There is always a beginning, middle and end to each chapter of her work. The relationships build between dancers. The music pushes the plot, however abstract it may be. Her work still tells a story of being human. Whether you see a narrative or just bodies in motion, Cirio’s choreography is inclusive and welcoming for all to experience and relate to. There is something about this open armed invitation that allows After to capture your attention and not let it go until the light dims and curtain falls.

In contrast to After, The Season’s Canon, which closes out the Fall Experience creates seemingly infinite dimensions made by intertwining bodies and creating movement that is more fluid than any individual body’s ability. You will find yourself rubbing your eyes and wondering if what you saw was real or a hallucination.

Sabrina Matthews’ Ein von Viel is the type of choreography and music that I always enjoy no matter what mindset or mood I am in. Ein von Viel is essentially a trio with Alex Foaksman on the piano on stage and a duo of dancers: Sun Woo Lee and Yue Shi. It is a bit like having sound-colour synesthesia but instead you are experiencing Bach’s Goldberg Variations as movement, not dancing to the music but rather the dancers becomes the music. Every note is reflected in the dancers body and it is so satisfying to watch. It is the type of work you can enjoy with total abandon. It floods your senses in perfect unity.

The world premiere of Jorma Elo’s work Plan to B was with Boston Ballet in March of 2004. Plan to B is performed side by side with a giant rectangle of light, which evoked artist James Turrell’s work with light and space. Like Ein Von Viel, the rectangle of light on stage almost became the third member of the piece. Velvet costumes are simple in design but because if the material reflecting the light in different ways there is an additional layer of richness within the simplicity.

The Seasons’ Canon was engrossing, mesmerizing and sensational. Bodies moved as one in a way that made you wonder how it is real. While in Plan to B the individual movement seems to defy space time continuum, keeping up with the music’s increasing tempo in The Seasons’ Canon it was the physical melding of bodies into one that was mind-bending and surreal. It was beautiful to witness the ebb and flow of bodies sometimes as one and at other times fragments of a whole. The Seasons’ Canon is a work I already know I have to see again. It was so powerful and unique. It evoked memories of early mornings at the ocean, and motion of everything from little crabs across the sand to the sand slipping away from under my toes.

 The Seasons’ Canon is a gesture, an offering. It’s my way of confronting the vastness and complexity of the living world, while at the same time giving thanks for it.

Crystal Pite

Crystal Pite’s The Seasons’ Canon features 54 dancers on stage in such a way that sometimes there is only one thing moving on stage despite the many bodies. Originally created for Paris Opera Ballet, this is the first work by Crystal work that Boston Ballet has presented. Set to Max Richter’s rendition of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Pite’s choreography draws on human emotion and her own life experiences.

Boston Ballet’s Fall experience runs through October 28th and City Living Boston readers have access to $45 tickets here with code CITYLIVING45