Boston Ballet’s 2025 ‘Spring Expertise’

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Act I presented the company’s re-envisioned Raymonda, adapted for 21st century sensibilities and prevailing values. I reviewed it with great pleasure in February of 2024. The inventive design concept returned. Aesthetic simplicity and cohesion spoke to much deeper and more complex meaning; for example, a worn, yet handsome picture frame again formed the backdrop, instilling a sense of history and classicism as well as literally framing the narrative’s players.

As the title character, Seo Hye Han keenly integrated girlish charm and a more mature technical refinement. Lasha Khozashvili, as Jean De Brienne, offered a similarly mature sweetness – his movement quality both notably welcoming and full of grandeur.

Notable performances also came from the solos and duets of the wedding scene (Act IV): a cornucopia of multifaceted, yet cohesive movement qualities. The entire ensemble presented the mystical effervescence that a classical tale such as this calls for.

Act II began with Jiři Kylián’s enticingly audacious sextet 27’52” (May 2025). The title, as just one part of the piece’s high level of abstraction, refers to the piece’s length. Yet, a lot more weighty meaning lay within those (almost) 28 minutes: change, intimacy, interpersonal turbulence and more.

Setting the tone for the work’s unconventionality, the work began with the house lights still up – no warning to the audience (“oh, it’s starting now, okay!”). No score but the dancers’ feet, as well as little ruffles and coughs from the audience, filled the aural atmosphere. The ensemble, spread all throughout the stage space, moved independently – both in movement vocabulary and timing – and did not yet relate with one another.

The ceiling and floor began to make their significant marks before long; the high set piece dropped, hiding from the chest up two dancers as they thrashed, agitated (set design also by Kylián). As quite chilling imagery, it activated the same instincts that horror movies do.

The movement then eased. That sort of shift in movement quality – from the convulsive to the aqueous – toggled throughout the work, while the ensemble danced through the drama of shadow and light. Another toggle: from isolated to partnered movement, from one kinetic force to two kinetic forces working as one.

Another dancer simply held a corner of the floor at the upstage left corner – creating a still shadow (lighting design by Kees Tjeebes) juxtaposing the quick movement of the duet opposite him. All combined, the contrast at hand was both evocative and highly satisfying. The floor and ceiling continued to change position throughout the work – underscoring the hefty truth of impermanence; what is constant if even the sky above us and floor beneath are not?

Adaptability to such changes was also clear, however; as the floor rippled and quaked, a dancer to the side shaking it, two dancers standing on it moved in ways allowing them to not fall at the physical shock. Earlier, one dancer had fallen because another moved the floor. Being fallible humans, sometimes we fail to adapt.

Also notable there was the power of simplicity; these relatively basic elements, intentionally stirred together, created something quite enthralling. The score (by Dirk Haubrich, based on two themes by Gustav Mahler), having come up and joined the dancers’ sounds, I wondered about more. Voiceover spoke to the artists’ education, and movement being “the music of the soul.”

I’m always curious about the extent to which such “meta”-commentary resonates with “lay” audience members. Yet there was enough visual dynamism on offer that even if some in the theater didn’t fully connect with such commentary, there was still plenty for them to savor.

Command of movement was key to that visual and energetic feast. Kinetic accents exploded with propulsive force as beats in the score did the same. Breakneck-speed movement lost no nuance or intricacy. Those dynamics were also more than skin deep; they painted a complex picture of how the personas before us related, conflicted, assented, connected.

After a duet – intimate, passionate, and turbulent all at once – curtains fell from on high, one by one. Lights then went out. “The sky is falling” is often a characterization of overblown catastrophizing. Yet perhaps the sky does fall, eventually – just as all does. Maybe recognizing the fluid, changing nature of all is acceptance rather than hyperbole.

The work was abstract enough to not assert anything in the way of such monumental matters. Yet it certainly led me to my own ponderings and conjectures, philosophical fodder that one could mentally circumambulate for hours on end. That can be worth more than all the assertions in the world.

The pure kinetic painting of Petite Mort (1991), also by Kylián, closed out the program. It began with the sense of a brewing storm: a rumbling sound in the score, a corps of male dancers walking backwards to downstage holding swords above their heads. Qualities at hand evolved into fast, expansive movement and a soft Mozart score.

The rapiers complemented the movement’s angular, sharp qualities. At one point dancers even manipulated the swords with their feet – seemingly borne from a bold spirit of “let’s try that, why not.” More creative prop use came with the corps running forwards and backwards with a giant sheet, its waving ripples mesmerizing.

A corps of ballerinas appeared when they pulled the sheet away – creating an optical illusion matching the dreamy, hazy atmosphere at hand. In more clarifying, pleasing contrast, the women slowly walked forward as the men moved like lightning, muscular and commanding.

That continued with softening of hard angles: the rock-solid becoming visceral waterfall. At either contrast, the movement brimmed with fervor, expansion, and intelligent connection with the surrounding moving souls (whether partnered or further out in space).

Yet, more inventive prop use came with the ballerinas floating on with large, petticoated black dress frames – which, teasing through stellar comedic timing, they used to delightful effect. Duets took us into something more reflective and sensual, yet some level of enlivening playfulness remained.

This duet structure also allowed for experiencing new visceral voices speaking, and new dialogues thereof, without shifting so quickly as to feel a sense of incompleteness. Through it all, in full flow, the dancers smoothly rode both momentum and music – infusing it all with full heart. With the dress frames returning, the work ended with another smirk-inducing moment (I even heard some chuckles from fellow audience members).

A sensuous curiosity, an atmospheric feast, at times just plain fun, the work offered a lot to enjoy without ever telling us in the audience what exactly to enjoy. I’d miss the captivating mystery on offer if it did! In a post-postmodern world of more questions and answers, such work only swims with the current of the moment – and, through also not being quite like anything else out there – makes the current all the stronger.

Boston Ballet – with its 2025 Spring Experience, but really with all of the company’s programming – has shown us how, with intentional and caring updates, even classics can join that stream. It can all be part of the wonder that is dance art, available to us if we come to it. The plethora of worthy offerings doesn’t stop, so we’ll never run out of exciting things to enjoy – often more than we can even avail ourselves of, really. What a great problem to have!

By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.

Boston Ballet, Citizens Bank Opera House, classical ballet, dance review, dance reviews, Dirk Haubrich, Gustav Mahler, Jiři Kylián, Kees Tjeebes, Lasha Khozashvili, online dance review, online dance reviews, review, Reviews, Seo Hye Han