Boston Ballet Reveals its Fall Experience Program

Boston Ballet and Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen present Fall Experience, a program featuring four ballets that will awaken your senses and touch your soul. Boston Ballet is the first American company to perform Akram Khan's profound Vertical Road. In the same evening, Hans van Manen's Trois Gnossiennes makes its Boston Ballet premiere, Jorma Elo's fan favorite Bach Cello Suites returns for the first time since 2018, and Artist of the Company My'Kal Stromile debuts his first mainstage work. Fall Experience runs October 5–15 at the Citizens Bank Opera House.

 

“I can't imagine a better program to kick off Boston Ballet's monumental 60th season. Fall Experience is a highly-curated collection of four unique and technically challenging ballets that will demonstrate the exceptional talent within our Company. It is a great honor to be the first American company to perform Akram's work, and I am thrilled for our audiences to experience it alongside a range of dynamic works that showcase breathtaking and diverse artistry,” said Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen.

Vertical Road

Akram Khan's Vertical Road explores humanity's earthly nature, rituals, and the consequences of our actions. This mesmerizing work becomes a meditation on the journey from gravity to grace. With a specially commissioned score by long-term collaborator composer Nitin Sawhney, Khan draws inspiration from the Sufi tradition and the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi.

 

Boston Ballet is the first American company to perform Vertical Road, and it is the first time the work is being restaged on a professional company since 2017. The piece changes each time it is performed by a different company, as it is built into the life and history of the dancers and the emotional and spiritual state of the choreographer today. Each dancer becomes fully immersed in the piece, as the cast of 12 dancers is dedicated only to Vertical Road for over six weeks of rehearsals prior to performances.

 

“I have always believed that a space where bodies are allowed to express and question what it means to be human, is absolutely necessary for all of us, as a society, and as a civilization. And if you don't have the space to feel at home in your body, you will never feel at home in the world.

 

Boston Ballet has continuously brought together artists from different sides of the globe to present, to share, to learn and to celebrate the power of dance. I am so excited for Boston Ballet to embody Vertical Road. It is a work that calls upon the real. It is about ritual, it is about process, it is about the labor of human movement to try and reach a place, where the movement eventually arrives at stillness. Because in stillness, the real movement begins, which calls upon the inner movement of our soul," said Khan.

 

Akram Khan is one of the most celebrated and respected dance artists of today. In just over 22 years, he has created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the arts in the UK and abroad. His reputation has been built on the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as Jungle Book reimagined, Outwitting the Devil, XENOS, Until the Lions, Kaash, iTMOi (in the mind of igor), DESH, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees.

 

As an instinctive and natural collaborator, Khan has been a magnet to world-class artists from other cultures and disciplines. His previous collaborators include the National Ballet of China, actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, choreographers/dancers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue, indie rock band Florence and the Machine, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost. Khan's work is recognized as being profoundly moving, in which his intelligently crafted storytelling is effortlessly intimate and epic. He has been described by the Financial Times as an artist “who speaks tremendously of tremendous things.” A highlight of his career was the creation of a section of the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony that was received with unanimous acclaim.

Trois Gnossiennes

Making its Boston Ballet premiere, Hans van Manen's Trois Gnossiennes is a pas de deux that invites the audience to glimpse an intriguing relationship, beginning with repressed tension between the two dancers. As the ballet progresses, the atmosphere changes into one of harmony as the couple begins to display natural trust in each other through the intricate choreography and musicality.

 

Performing Erik Satie's masterful work for the piano by the same name, the pianist is on stage with the dancers as the trio reveals the harmony and tension that manifests in physical movement and musical texture. The pianist is an integral part of the piece as the piano's placement shifts with the choreography, guided by three dancers.

 

Hans van Manen (Nieuwer-Amstel, the Netherlands, 1932) is internationally recognized as one of the grand masters of contemporary ballet. Including his works for television, he has created more than 150 ballets, which all bear his distinct signature. Clarity in structure, refined simplicity and an aversion to decorative frills form the key elements in his extremely musical ballets, which always concern human relationships without becoming anecdotal.

 

Van Manen had his first ballet lessons in the late forties from Sonia Gaskell, who engaged him in her group Ballet Recital in 1951. Van Manen went on to dance with the Netherlands Opera Ballet and Roland Petit's Ballets de Paris. In 1955, he made his debut as a choreographer with Olé, Olé, la Margarita. His third creation, Feestgericht, received the State Award for Choreography. Since 1960, Van Manen has worked alternately with the two main dance companies of the Netherlands. After co-directing Nederlands Dans Theater for ten years, he became a resident choreographer–first with the Dutch National Ballet (1973-1987) and then with Nederlands Dans Theater (1988-2003). Since 2005, he has once again held the post of resident choreographer with the Dutch National Ballet.

 

Besides being in the repertoire of Dutch National Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater, and Introdans–the three Dutch 'custodians' of his works–his ballets are also danced by over 90 companies outside the Netherlands.

Bach Cello Suites

Boston Ballet Resident Choreographer Jorma Elo's Bach Cello Suites returns for the first time since 2018. Built on a classical foundation, it features 10 dancers and is set to Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites Nos. 1 & 2, with a solo cellist performing onstage. Sergey Antonov, winner of the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 2007, will join Boston Ballet again as the cello soloist. Boston Ballet will also perform Bach Cello Suites as part of its upcoming tour to Paris in May 2024.

 

Finnish-born Jorma Elo was appointed Resident Choreographer of Boston Ballet in 2005. He has created more than 60 works for over 30 companies worldwide, including New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, and National Ballet of Canada. Elo danced professionally with Finnish National Ballet and Cullberg Ballet and joined Netherlands Dance Theater in 1990, where he enjoyed a 15-year career. Elo was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland, one of Finland's highest honors, in 2015. He was awarded Moscow's prestigious Benois de la Danse prize for best choreography in 2011 for his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Slice to Sharp.

Form and Gesture

Making its world premiere, Form and Gesture is Artist of the Company My'Kal Stromile's first mainstage work. The overarching theme of Form and Gesture is the exploration of movement in various forms, from fortification and progression to expansion and abstraction. It celebrates the beauty, expressiveness, and transformative power of movement while bridging the gap between classical ballet tradition and contemporary innovation. It also explores opposition. The title signifies the overarching themes explored in the ballet—the dynamic interplay between form, representing the physicality and structure of ballet, and gesture, capturing the expressive and communicative power of movement.

 

Performed by 13 dancers, the ballet will feature five sections: Exhibit A: Tune Fortification, Exhibit B: Chord Progressions, Entr'Acte (The Interval), Exhibit C: Apparatus Augmentation, and Exhibit D: sketches, graphs, and parabolas. Through these exhibits, Form and Gesture unfolds as a celebration of the human form in motion, the eloquence of gesture, and the timeless beauty of ballet.

 

“For this debut piece, I wanted to create something that was both bold and accessible, that would challenge the audience while still allowing them to connect emotionally with the dancers and the music. I have drawn on a range of influences, from classical ballet to contemporary dance, to create a style that is uniquely my own,” said Stromile.

 

“Throughout the rehearsal process, I have been struck by the incredible talent and dedication of the dancers, who have brought my vision to life with grace and precision. I have also been blessed with a team of talented designers and technicians, who have worked tirelessly to create visually stunning and immersive experiences. Ultimately, my goal as a choreographer is to use movement to tell stories, to express emotions that are beyond words, and to create moments of beauty and transcendence that stay with the audience long after the curtain has fallen.”

 

My'Kal Stromile's extensive training includes instruction from Kim Abel in Dallas/New York, Ceyhun Ozsoy in Dallas, and Anna-Marie Holmes in Boston. He attended The Juilliard School from 2014 to 2018. Stromile has danced with Bruce Wood Dance, Dallas Black Dance Theatre II, Disney Productions, and Repertory Dance Company I. In 2014, Stromile was named a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts. That same year, at the invitation of TITAS Presents and choreographer Bruce Wood, Stromile participated in the 2014 Command Performance Ballet Gala, where principal dancers from all over the world performed new and existing repertoire. During his time at Juilliard, he received Choreographic Honors three years in a row and was awarded the school's Hector Zaraspe Prize in Choreography (2018). Stromile is a 2019 Princess Grace Award Nominee. Stromile joined Boston Ballet II in 2018 and joined Boston Ballet as an artist in 2019.

 

All nine performances of Fall Experience will take place at the Citizens Bank Opera House (539 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111):

Thursday, Oct 5 at 7:30 pm 
Friday, Oct 6 at 7:30 pm 
Saturday, Oct 7 at 7:30 pm 
Sunday, Oct 8 at 1:30 pm 
Thursday, Oct 12 at 7:30 pm 
Friday, Oct 13 at 7:30 pm 
Saturday, Oct 14 at 1:30 and 7:30 pm 
Sunday, Oct 15 at 1:30 pm

 

Tickets start at $25. For more information, visit bostonballet.org or call 617.695.6955.

 

Fall Experience runs approximately two hours with two intermissions.

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