Last April, when the curtain came down on Pacific Northwest Ballet’s final performance of Crystal Pite’s The Seasons’ Canon, my mind was already scrambling for how I could see this work again. It is a ballet that I am willing to chase around the world, so singularly precious is the experience of seeing this masterpiece of a creation. Last weekend, Boston Ballet became the third company in the world to acquire The Seasons’ Canon, and by doing so, they have become a bestower of otherworldly beauty that has the power to leave you feeling changed in some remarkable way.
Although The Seasons’ Canon has the capacity to brush away all memory of anything that came before, three shorter works did indeed fill the stage before Max Richter’s seductive score took over. I won’t pretend like I wasn’t counting down until The Seasons’ Canon, and it seemed as though the theater itself was urging on the night to get to Pite’s work faster, for a few escaping snowflakes fell sporadically throughout the first three pieces. In addition to The Seasons’ Canon by Crystal Pite, Boston Ballet’s Fall Experience program features After, a world premiere by Lia Cirio, Ein von Viel, by Sabrina Matthews, and Plan to B, by Jorma Elo.
Boston Ballet Principal dancer Lia Cirio’s world premiere is one which seems perfectly timed for Halloween. Lera Auerbach’s score continually finds moments of dissonance which paint an unsettling undertone throughout the piece, and makes one feel as though you are wandering an abandoned Victorian house at night, with prussian blue falling upon dancers who dance as though alone in vacant rooms. The only set that fills the stage is a white, accordion-folded piece which from the beginning, makes the silhouetted dancers appear like paper dolls come to life. In this work, Cirio shows a Balanchine-esque creative gift to surprise the audience. Her dancers find classical poses and then melt out of them, flex their feet where one might expect a continued line, and don’t always use the music’s tempo as their guide. The sense of unease works beautifully in relation to the moments of harmony, creating a contrast in mood that you can feel in your bones.
The shortest pierce of the night, Ein von Viel, is a playful pas de deux set to solo piano. It’s not often that two male-presenting dancers get to share a duet, but this work shows just how much there is to explore in that realm of possibilities. Silly, without losing its integrity, playful without feeling childlike, this work walks a thin line, yet succeeds in finding its voice through and through.
Plan to B blew me away with its speed. Even while moving faster than my eyes could keep up with, technical accuracy was never sacrificed, and if anything, seemed only to sharpen at moments of bee-like speed. Flight of the Bumblebee came to mind, for their buzzing energy was limitless, and as they soared through the choreography, it was with unhuman-like hunger for limitless velocity.
The Seasons’ Canon is an extraordinary gift of creative genius which begins and ends with stillness, as all things do. When the curtain rises, a gentle, flickering light moves across the backdrop before landing on a group of huddled dancers. In the quiet of the pale shifting light, there is something brewing beneath the soil, something gaining force until it must inevitably come to birth. Like the first green shoot of spring, a single head emerges, seeking the sun. Not long is this dancer alone before a deep note brings the group to life, each head lifting in turn, suddenly awake and moving as one. The group of huddled bodies take a collective breath as they become one curling, arching form. Watching them come to life hits me anew each and every time I see this piece. Coupled with Max Richter’s delicate first notes of spring, it feels like the beginning of something momentous, and it is.
Within this first section, we see one of Crystal Pite’s greatest gifts, the ability to shift reality. Each dancer moves from side to side in a deep second position and their slight movement, when duplicated by a stage full of dancers, is enough to make it feel like the earth is moving. Right from the beginning, Pite makes it clear that within this world, within these precious 31 minutes, there are no limits to what dance can convey, or what elaborate images a group of bodies can create together. It is an otherworldly canvas which she paints, incomparable in every way.
In The Seasons’ Canon, Crystal Pite presents us a picture of our world, and that picture is so crystal clear, so masterfully created that it is as though we are seeing our world for the very first time. From a great, roaring wave, to the microscopic lives we never catch a glimpse of, it is all there upon the stage, brimming with life. Cast in stark, dramatic lighting, all of the world’s heartache, brutality, harshness, beauty, and strength is laid upon the stage. Crystal Pite has said that this work is “my way of confronting the vastness and complexity of the living world while at the same time giving thanks for it”. And of course, she does it in the most breathtakingly beautiful way possible. At times, this mirroring of our world is abstract, while certain sections show us the animalistic qualities within humans and it’s nearly painful to see this kind of honesty and vulnerability upon the stage. Greed, violence, hate, birth, death, awe, unimaginable loss… it’s all there, glowing in a sky of orange.
There are so many moments in this work that still baffle me. Who else, other than the genius Crystal Pite could have imagined these complex layers of 54 dancers who fold, collapse, reach, and carve forms out of thin air in a never-ending cascade of chain reactions. What a mind you must have to be able to plot all of this, to imagine how 54 bodies will come together to create such wondrous beauty together. The last section especially, is a mindblowing sight to behold. Limbs turn to a canon of geometric patterns, falling, rising, breaking again and again while snowflakes drift from the heavens and Richter’s score seems to warn that the end of something miraculous is nearing its end.
It is a haunting scene that Pite leaves us with. Those 54 bodies that were just moments before full of unbound life, become still, lifeless beings, while one solitary dancer panics at the sight, and is left alone amid a frozen crowd. Even after seeing it live five times, I am left shattered and rebirthed and reeling when they come to a still. How can something so brilliant come and then go? Why won’t the beauty linger just a bit longer? I could stay in this world forever, finding new layers of genius within Pite’s movement landscape for the rest of eternity.
The Seasons’ Canon could not exist without Max Ricter’s glorious reworking of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”. It is the emotional backbone of the work, the soaring, limitless voice which urges on these dancers and brings the audience to tears. I was disappointed to discover that Boston Ballet would not be performing this piece with a live orchestra, for to hear it at Pacific Northwest Ballet with a full orchestra was to have yet another layer of magic come together in that very moment as it never would again. Pacific Northwest Ballet remains the only company to perform this piece with live music, and I must say, experiencing that kind of raw beauty sent chills through the theater which simply cannot be replicated with a recording.
It is fascinating to see a piece as complex and detailed as The Seasons’ Canon be taken on by another company. Because the gold scrim that reflects shards of light was built anew for Boston Ballet, the very light itself is different. Even the snow falls with a different character on this side of the country. And yet, humans are humans, and I heard the same reactions to certain sections that I’ve learned to anticipate back in Seattle: the audible awe of the satisfying lizard-brain movement of Autumn, the child-like wonder that takes away the audience’s breath when snow begins to drift earthwards in Winter, and the standing ovation that never fails to end the night. I am always amazed how easily ballet dancers step into Pite’s movement vocabulary, which is demanding in a very different way than other repertory. Seeing them in this work, you forget that anything else has ever filled their limbs, or even, that anything else exists at all. It seems it is their second nature, to move with such fierce intuition, and limitless passion through the relentless wonder of this work.
This crown of Boston Ballet’s 24/25 season shows a company who is more than capable of tackling such a large-scale, innovative work. The Seasons’ Canon requires unimaginable unity, precision, passion, and strength from its dancers, who must become one body, and learn to breathe together. How can it be that after eight years, Boston Ballet is only the third company to perform The Season’s Canon? There is such mind blowing, life-changing, miraculous wonder in it that it seems it should be spreading around the world like wildfire.
This is a work that everyone should see at least once. If you never see anything else, let it be this glorious masterpiece, which has the power to change how you see dance, and maybe even, how you see life itself. It breaks down and reshapes everything that you expect dance to be without feeling like it is trying to be novel. It is unapologetically unique in its authentic ingenuity. It will leave you flooded with gratitude for being alive to witness something so grand, to witness this moment where all the world is beautiful even in its darkest corners.
Two years after its premiere at Pacific Northwest Ballet, I am still pinching myself that the wonder before my eyes is real, and that all of this indescribable beauty is unfolding before me in the most precious of present moments. You would think that after seeing something so many times, a heart wouldn’t be overwhelmed, but with Pite’s work, the love and emotional effect only deepens. If it were up to me, it would never end, and there we would sit forever, enraptured by luminescent beauty.
Until next time, dear Seasons’ Canon, I will be waiting patiently until those tender glimpses of light come flickering across the stage once more.
Fall Experience runs until November 3 at Boston Ballet. Go see it! Tell everyone in New England to go see it! I promise you will not be disappointed.
A huge thank you to Boston Ballet for inviting me to come see them take on one of my favorite works. I will be forever grateful for your generosity.