Ballet is pure and clean and visceral. And it is finely crafted, meticulously designed. When it works — as it does so well in Boston Ballet season opener Fall Experience (now through Nov. 3 at Citizens Opera House — it evokes conflicting impulses: It makes you wonder, “What does this all mean?” and makes you shout, “I am alive! This is life!”
Yes, it’s a lot to ask of dance and music. Or it would be from a lesser company.
As the Boston Ballet begins its 61st season, Fall Experience charges into the pure and feral and calculated with a wide-ranging program that includes two standouts, the world premiere of Lia Cirio’s “After” and Crystal Pite’s “The Season’s Canon.”
A long-time principal dancer with Boston Ballet and emerging choreographer, Cirio has created a piece that demands an immense amount from the dancers. Set to selections from Lera Auerbach’s almost unhinged (in the best possible way) “24 Preludes for Violin and Piano,” “After” runs dancers through movements grounded in classical ballet but pushed into experimental modern dance.
Pite’s “The Season’s Canon” is pure magic — a Boston debut and the most thrilling piece I’ve seen the company do. Max Richter’s drone-to-crescendo reimagining of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” provides the canvas for Pite to turn a huge cast into a series of shifting organic forms, cresting waves of arms, pulses of bobbing heads, twists and turns, kinetic energy coming from scores of dancers to build a single organism before breaking away into individuals.
Yes, it’s a lot to ask of the audience. Or, again, it would be from a lesser company. What may sound like a challenging program, is so easy to connect with, so wild and yet always reassuring.
The Fall Experience is for longtime fans and those curious about the art form, as is the rest of the dynamic season.
It’s “The Nutcracker” people. What more is there to say? Maybe that it’s famous for a reason. Scored by Tchaikovsky, interpreted by Boston Ballet artistic director Mikko Nissinen, it isn’t lightweight art. It’s a deeply complex, compelling, and challenging piece.
If you saw the company’s 2022 performance of Nissinen’s “Swan Lake,” you witnessed a dance masterpiece. But forget the dancing. Listen to just a snatch of Tchaikovsky’s score, say Act II, No. 14 Scene, and you can hear the composer’s influence on a hundred years of Hollywood scores — in just these few minutes John Williams found inspiration for “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and the Harry Potter films. So, sure, go for the dancing. But know that the score is every bit as astounding.
Another huge artistic sweep in a single night. This Experience has George Balanchine choreographing music from Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky. It has Claudia Schreier’s 2022 piece “Slipstream.” It has Leonid Yakobson’s “Vestris,” a solo work created specifically for Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1969.
Didn’t get enough diversity in the Winter Experience? Well, first, I don’t believe you. But go deeper with three wildly different ballets: Nissinen’s “Raymonda” and Jiří Kylián “Petite Mort” and “27’52””
The season wraps with Boston Ballet’s premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s take on the Shakespeare classic. Powered by Prokofiev’s score, Maillot’s reimagining of the tragedy adds contemporary choreography and dashes of cinematography.
For tickets and details, visit bostonballet.org