Black, white, and contemporary all over - Boston Ballet prepares for the US premiere of a striking program by Czech choreographer Jirí Kylián
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Boston Ballet is the first company outside Nederlands Dans Theater, where Kylian is resident choreographer and former artistic director, to perform "Black and White" in its entirety. For Boston Ballet artistic director Mikko Nissinen, who says that Kylian's great gift is his ability to illuminate the human soul, getting the green light to present this program is something like anointment.

From Czech choreographer, a journey through darkness and light
Czech choreographer Jirí Kylián's "Black and White" is a bone-snapping journey on the (mostly) dark side, cracked into five parts and strung together by, of all things, multilayered period ball gowns that in turn skitter across the stage on casters, hover overhead with bell skirts gaping, or "clothe" the dancers themselves.

'Black' paints the town red
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The company’s flexibility was impressive. “Black and White” is more modern than classical, but Mikko Nissinen’s troupe pulled it off. Costumes and staging were subdued but the lighting was an artistic study in contrasts and focus.

Boston Ballet's ‘Jewels’ is a gem
George Balanchine, arguably the most important choreographer of the 20th century, created the three-act, plotless ballet “Jewels” in 1967, and it instantly became a crowd pleaser. From its slow, elegant beginning (the green-tinted “Emeralds”), to its fast-paced mid-section (“Rubies”), to the spectacle-laden processional (“Diamonds”), which revives memories of the master ballet maker’s childhood and early training in Russia, the work seems to have summarized Balanchine’s strengths and ambitions.

The beauty of Balanchine - Boston Ballet sparkles in multifaceted 'Jewels'
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It is, after all, human beings - full-blooded, heart-throbbing, sensual and sweaty - who bring a dance's steps and gestures, its melodies and rhythms and patterns in space to life. And so it is impossible to keep a story - of bonds and breakages, if nothing else - out of the picture.

This was nowhere more evident than in the Boston Ballet's debut last night of Balanchine's famous "Jewels ....