The serenity of a floating ballerina, the chaos of blue and green shapes, a game of charades and the unmatched energy of a large ensemble of dancers. The versatility of a single art form was on display at Boston Ballet’s “Winter Experience,” which concluded on Sunday after running from March 20–30 at the Citizens Opera House.
The “Winter Experience” included two Balanchine masterpieces — accompanied by music from Tchaikovsky’s “Mozartiana” and Stravinsky’s “Symphony in Three Movements” — along with Claudia Schreier’s “Slipstream” and Leonid Yakobson’s “Vestris.” The variety of pieces created an exciting viewer experience through a look into the expansive range of balletic styles and the capabilities of the movements as a promise for the company’s future.
The program opened with Balanchine’s “Mozartiana,” a neoclassical work to Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 4 Op. 61, which first premiered at the 1981 Tchaikovsky Festival. The piece is considered the last major ballet created by the transformative choreographer before his death. It included a principal ballerina, a principal male dancer, a soloist male dancer, four corps ballerinas and four students from the Boston Ballet School.
The most exciting part of the piece was its ending. It broke from classical ballet structure with both principals performing a series of individual variations before ending with a haunting pas de deux, the dancers laying on each other in an arabesque of apparent despair. On Friday night, the principal ballerina was beautifully executed by Viktorina Kapitonova, whose forlorn expressions and artistry brought the tone of the piece to fruition. However, in the context of the full program, the piece felt slightly bogged down and out of place with its slower speed and more serene movements.
Following the first intermission was Claudia Schreier’s “Slipstream,” a dynamic piece with both intense energy and impressive technique. It originally premiered in 2022 through Boston Ballet’s ChoreograpHER initiative, which aims to promote female choreographers. The dancing fused together both neoclassical and contemporary vocabulary to tell the story of a young woman who finds herself on a shapeshifting path to self-discovery.
Derek Dunn in Leonid Yakobson's Vestris.
In contrast to the flowy calm of “Mozartiana,” the movements in “Slipstream” were exciting and intense, prompting gasps and awe from the audience. The lifts were seamless and uncommon; at one point, the female dancers sat on the male dancers’ shoulders offstage and leaned out of the stage wings as if their torsos were floating. The impressive movements and dancer interactions did not take away from the story as it was portrayed by Chyrstyn Fentroy through her dramatic struggle to move through the shapes created by the other dancers.
“Slipstream” proved to be a highlight of the program, with the harmony of contemporary and neoclassical movement bringing a fresher feeling to the experience as a whole. While many ballet-goers may attend the Winter and Spring Experiences for the world-renowned Balanchine pieces, “Slipstream” brought attention to the evolution of ballet. As the dancers transformed their movements, audiences transcended away from the familiar Balanchine neoclassical into something new and exciting.
The program continued to push the boundaries of neoclassical with a ballet incorporating aspects of musical theater in Yakobson’s “Vestris.” The piece was created for the extremely talented Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1969 and is only performed by the best male dancers. The Boston Ballet is the only company in the United States that is trusted to present “Vestris” today, which created an exclusive and exciting feeling for the audience.
Boston Ballet in George Balanchine’s Symphony in Three Movements ©The George Balanchine Trust is pictured.
The solo requires the male dancer to present many personalities varying from an elderly man to a proud hero. Through miming, Jeffrey Cirio comically put on many different “masks,” getting many laughs from the audience. Yet still, Cirio completed impressive technical jumping sections interspersed with the charades. “Vestris” was a refreshing and lighthearted moment in the program, offering audiences a different version of ballet from the rest of the works.
The program closed with Balanchine’s “Symphony in Three Movements,” which first premiered at the 1972 Stravinsky Festival. The piece included an impressive 32 dancers in simple white, black or pink leotards. The movement emphasized coordination and power of the ensemble. All the female dancers, except the principal, had their hair in long, flouncy ponytails, rather than the traditional bun, which added to the mesmerizing movements. The audience was lost in the excitement and grandeur of difficult steps, jazzy arms and complicated formations.
Boston Ballet’s “Winter Experience” took audiences on a unique journey through the art form by presenting the various ways ballet can be used as a medium. Beginning with “Mozartiana,” audiences experienced the tranquility and longing as it was expressed through the well-known Balanchine neoclassical movement. Audiences were then captivated by the dynamic, energetic and female-focused story of “Slipstream,” which presented the power of a neoclassical and contemporary union. Then, “Vestris” surprised audiences with both its comedic elements and impressive technical execution in a silly and impressive solo work.
“Symphony in Three Movements” was a poetic ending to an impressive repertoire. As the final piece included so many dancers, it presented the grandness and artistic reach of the current Boston Ballet Company dancers with elements of ballet, jazz and everything in between. It was a promise of a bright future that audiences can be excited about, for the 2025-26 season was announced on Tuesday, just days after the final “Winter Experience” performance. The upcoming season promises “Jewels,” “Sleeping Beauty” and other exciting repertoire.
