Especially amid winter’s bitter isolation and bleakness, one cannot help but anticipate the crackle and rising glow of  spring. Through these two bold works, Boston Ballet shows how to appreciate the wonder of winter and glow in spring’s glorious awakening.

Boston Ballet’s Winter Experience continues live and in person at Citizens Bank Opera House in Boston, Massachusetts through Sunday, March 15.  The production is one hour and 50 minutes with one intermission.  Click here for more information and for tickets.

With a wealth of expectation and powerful expression, Boston Ballet’s wondrous Winter Experience features a visceral pair of complementary works infusing innovative ballet which envisions the intensity of the season as well as the increasing promise of spring in Jorma Elo’s bold classic Le Sacre Du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) and Crystal Pite’s contemporary favorite, The Seasons’ Canon. 

 Boasting Jorma’s Elo’s sharp and versatile choreography, Le Sacre Du Printemps depicts rich beauty as dancers shift and sway to Stravinsky’s commanding score that ebbs and flows from tender to thunderous.  With incredible choreography by Crystal Pite and exhilarating music by Max Richter, The Seasons’ Canon finale remains one of the most amazing pieces that I have ever witnessed from the Boston Ballet.

Stravinsky’s Le Sacre Du Printemps is a striking exploration of a ritual dance believed to usher in the spring season.  Adorned in Charles Heightchew’s vibrant sequined burgundy costumes as a band of brimming color rises amid a black layered latticed backdrop, dancers slice the air, trot, tick and lunge in pas de deux and in groups delivering unruly yet synchronized grace in their athletic, sharp and intimate steps. 

Stravinsky’s powerful drum and horn-infused rhythms ebb and flow from soft and mischievous to urgent and rebellious which reflect in the dancers as they intricately link and divide and in Brandon Stirling Baker’s symbolic and transformative lighting.  Pairs form daring and unique patterns as well as mirror each other as Stravinsky’s wielding drive animates dancers from rigid and mechanical to surprising to occasionally humorous within its more spontaneous moments to haunting as the dance intensifies.

Under a gleaming, crackling and morphing gold light by Jay Gower Taylor and Tom Visser, the Boston Ballet unveils a vision like none other with The Seasons’ Canon.  Crystal Pite’s intricate and meticulously detailed chorography to Max Richter’s version of Vivaldi’s mesmerizing The Four Seasons makes The Seasons’ Canon a superlative experience.  An incredible vision in every sense of the word, The Seasons’ Canon is innovative and unique as dancers pulse, sway, and tumble with intricate fluidity and precision while methodically spilling onto the stage. Moving like one sinewy organism as if waking from hibernation and molding into magnificent shapes, the sheer exactitude and congruent nature of these movements cannot be overstated.  An exciting, uplifting and commanding piece with bursts of energy as the landscape transforms into shades of silver, orange, and gold, is exquisite in every season.   It is a haunting and brilliant performance sure to stay with you long after the piece has ended.

Boston Ballet’s Winter Experience continues live and in person at Citizens Bank Opera House in Boston, Massachusetts through Sunday, March 15.  Click here for more information and for tickets.