Boston Ballet's FALL EXPERIENCE to Open Tour to NYC and Paris

Boston Ballet will present Fall Experience, a contrasting and powerful program featuring two groundbreaking contemporary works: Alexander Ekman's Cacti and Akram Khan's Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023. Fall Experience opens Boston Ballet's 63rd season and runs September 10–20 at the Citizens Opera House. The program also launches the celebration of Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen's 25 seasons with the Company, reflecting his enduring commitment to expanding Boston Ballet's repertoire through the work of some of the world's most influential choreographers.

Boston Ballet will also take these works on tour. The Company was invited to perform Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023 as part of the Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center September 24–25. After receiving critical acclaim on the last two tours to Paris, Boston Ballet is being presented again at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and will perform both Cacti and Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023 October 8–11.

“I am thrilled to present this extraordinary program in Boston, especially before we bring these incredible ballets to audiences in New York and Paris, further highlighting Boston Ballet's reputation on the global scale,” said Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen. “Cacti is an inventive and engaging work that combines humor, live music, and exceptional dancing in a way that is both entertaining and thought-provoking. Paired with the powerful emotional depth and striking physicality of Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023, the program showcases the remarkable versatility of our dancers.”

The Boston program opens with a musical interlude, played by the Boston Ballet Orchestra, featuring two sections from Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite (1919 version) – Infernal Dance; Finale.

CACTI

Alexander Ekman's Cacti is a playful and rhythmically charged contemporary ballet created in 2010. Known for its wit, physicality, and clever commentary on the culture of dance and artistic interpretation, Cacti was nominated for “Best New Modern Choreography” by the UK Dance Critics Foundation. Cacti is set to a complex score performed by the Boston Ballet Orchestra and an on stage string quartet. A cast of 16 dancers perform on raised platforms, which become instruments with the dancers slapping, stomping, and drumming on them to generate percussive rhythms. The choreography is athletic and powerful, and the work ends with each dancer acquiring a cactus, which is meant to be intentionally ambiguous, but not symbolic, rather a satirical way to comment on how audiences, critics, and artists often feel compelled to assign deep meaning to objects in contemporary dance. Surprising and inventive, audiences will be captivated by this engaging ballet that utilizes rhythm, space, and humor to challenge pre-conceived notions of contemporary dance.

This will be the first time Boston Ballet will perform Cacti since 2017.

“While creating Cacti, for the first time I had the chance to create a work with musicians in the studio, which was a new way of working for me. Together with a string quartet, we created a rhythmical game between dancers and musicians which became the score for the work. Cacti demands a high concentration both from dancers and musicians, which makes it very exciting to observe. I have always been fascinated by human capability during highest concentration and our way of acting in a state of emergency,” Ekman said.

Alexander Ekman is a Swedish dancer and choreographer resident in Stockholm, Sweden. He is known internationally for his work with many dance companies around the world. Ekman has become known as the dance world's own “l'enfant terrible”. Ekman has created pieces mainly for Opera houses and Theatre dance companies around the world. He also directs films and music videos, as well as live performances in pop up locations and Museums. Ekman is known for his fast-paced, captivating works. One of his main talents is his sense for timing, witty humor, and clever transitions. He aims to create work which the majority can relate to—human problems and situations. Since 2006, he has fully devoted his time creating pieces which both entertain and question the observer. He aims to transform the atmosphere in the theater and to surprise the audience. Ekman has created 55 works to date, many of which are performed around the world by renowned dance companies such as Netherlands Dance Theater, Paris Opera Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet, Göteborg Danskompani, Joffrey Ballet, among many others. In 2024, Ekman was invited to direct and choreograph the performance segment during the opening ceremony of the Paralympic games in Paris.

VERTICAL ROAD (REIMAGINED) 2023

Akram Khan's Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023 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 Aditya Prakash and long-term collaborator composer Nitin Sawhney, Khan draws inspiration from the Sufi tradition and the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi.

Boston Ballet made the world premiere of Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023, and it was the first time the work was 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.

“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 24 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 Thikra: Night of Remembering, GIGENIS: the generation of the Earth, 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.

TOURING

Boston Ballet is proud to tour to New York City and Paris after the conclusion of Fall Experience in Boston. Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023 will be performed at the Fall for Dance Festival in New York City September 24–25, marking Boston Ballet's return to City Center after performing in Fall for Dance 2024. In October, Boston Ballet will return to Paris to perform Cacti and Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées October 8–11, returning for a historic third tour. The Boston Herald wrote, “At the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, where they know a thing or two about ballet, our hometown company wowed them. The reviews were raves. Yes, the Hub company is that good.”

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

Thursday, September 10 at 7:30 pm
Friday, September 11 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, September 12 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, September 13 at 1:30 pm
Thursday, September 17 at 7:30 pm
Friday, September 18 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, September 19 at 1:30 and 7:30 pm
Sunday, September 20 at 1:30 pm

Fall Experience performance length is approximately one hour and 35 minutes, including one 20-minute intermission.

The Firebird: Suite (1919 version) - Infernal Dance; Finale
Boston Ballet Orchestra
Music: Igor Stravinsky

Cacti
Choreography and Scenic Design: Alexander Ekman
Music: Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert Death and the Maiden (arranged and orchestrated by Andy Stein)
Lighting and Scenic Design: Tom Visser
Costume Design: Alexander Ekman
Text: Spenser Theberge

Vertical Road (Reimagined) 2023
Choreography: Akram Khan
Music: Aditya Prakash Foretelling (Prologue) Nitin Sawhney Vertical Road (group piece)
Original Lighting Design: Jesper Kongshaug
Lighting Recreation: Richard Fagan
Costume Design: Kimie Nakano
Dramaturg: Ruth Little
Set Conceived by: Akram Khan, Kimie Nakano, Jesper Kongshaug

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