Fall feels like something of a reset. Students embark on new beginnings at school, while working professionals hunker down to make progress on fresh projects. With this excitement in the air, maybe you’re looking to experience art that will contribute to this moment of exhilarating discovery. Whether you’re enjoying Boston Ballet’s “Jewels” or the return of tap dance company Music From The Sole, you’ll certainly emerge with a new perspective when you see this autumn’s performers grace the stage.
Multiple Locations | Sept. 26-Dec. 7
Cambridge’s dance hub, The Dance Complex, is hosting a number of invigorating events this season. On Sept. 26, catch the free “Fall Into Dance” season preview, a public celebration produced in partnership with Boston Dance Alliance and ArtsBoston that offers performances and meet-and-greets with this fall’s artists and leaders in the field. “Dr. Neena Prasad in Concert” on Oct. 4 features a star of the classical southern Indian Mohiniyattam style, made possible by producer Rasik Dance Concert Series. On Oct. 25-26, showcase “Roots and Routes” will honor teachers from The Dance Complex who are also choreographers. An excerpt from Beheard.World’s “Belonging and Othering” and the premiere of “How We Go,” a social-justice themed work will be performed Nov. 22-23. Finally, the venue will host “Through Lines” by New York City-based Seán Curran Company and Worcester-based dance company Decent Dance, Dec. 6-7.
Hopkinton Center for the Arts | Sept. 27
Boston Dance Theater commissioned Persian-Spanish choreographer Roya Carreras Fereshtehnejad to create a project inspired by the “experience of fighting for your life, holding on to each minute, and letting go all collide into the here and now.” The artist used her personal battle with two forms of cancer, which she encountered in her early 30s. The dance is set to the music of the organization’s founder Jessie Jeanne Stinnett’s “Fifties,” a selection of songs that became popular during the 1950s. Two other dance pieces, “If as if” by Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili and “Firebird” by German choreographer Marco Goecke, will also be performed.
Boston Arts Academy Theater | Oct. 17-19
Music From The Sole, a tap dance and live music company from New York City that “celebrates tap’s Afro-diasporic roots,” presents a work as part of Celebrity Series of Boston. The piece “House is Open, Going Dark” navigates what happens when creatives — musicians and dancers — inhabit a metaphysical home together, revealing moments of tension and union. The quotidian experiences that the artists share become graceful instances of performance, while they move between spaces. Music from the Sole returns to Boston after its 2024 program “I Didn’t Come to Stay.”
Marco Flores: ‘Rayuela’
Berklee Performance Center | Nov. 2
Global Arts Live presents Spain’s National Dance Award-winning dancer Marco Flores, showcasing the bold and daring flamenco form. The tremendous “Rayuela” (meaning “hopscotch” in Spanish) brings together guitar music, singing and dance, and honors Flores’ 25-year career. “Rayuela” is inspired by the stream-of-consciousness novel of the same name by Julio Cortázar, and it pays homage to flamenco at its fieriest. As an artist, Flores is known for the elegance of his artistry, his versatility and inimitable style.
Boston Ballet: ‘Jewels’
Citizens Bank Opera House | Nov. 6-16
This masterpiece of George Balanchine, known by some as the father of American ballet, will captivate dreamers this November. Choreographed in 1967, “Jewels” spotlights three different styles of neoclassical ballet, broken up into three segments: “Emeralds,” “Rubies” and “Diamonds.” The first features the melodies of French composer Gabriel Fauré, while the second is set to the music of Igor Stravinsky, who worked closely with Balanchine. The last piece calls upon the strains of Russian romantic composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The concept for the exquisite exhibition comes from Balanchine’s visit to French American businessman Claude Arpels’ jewelry showroom in New York. Glistening and brilliant, the ballet is sure to stun.
Cutler Majestic Theatre | Nov. 14-15
Award-winning choreographer Camille A. Brown, an artist who explores issues of identity, brings “I AM” to Downtown Boston this fall, presented by Celebrity Series of Boston. The piece is inspired by the HBO sci-fi horror show “Lovecraft Country,” about a young Black man traveling in pursuit of his missing father in 1950s America. The idea of searching for self and the power that one derives from self-expression is explored through “a world of African diasporic dance styles into an energetic, spontaneous, immersive and powerful work,” according to the description.
Roxbury Community College Media Arts Center | Nov. 15
Celebrity Series of Boston offers dance enthusiasts this one-night performance from Jean Appolon Expressions, a Boston-based company that integrates Haitian folkloric dance with contemporary styles. The organization aims to connect audiences with Haitian culture and heritage, while participating in the cultivation of a more “expressive and socially just world.” This performance will include excerpts from “Pouvwa” and “Traka.”
ICA | Nov. 15-16
Presented by Global Arts Live, New York’s Doug Varone and Dancers will visit Boston for a short engagement at the ICA, bringing masterful movement to the museum’s space. The dance company has been active for 40 years, and during this staging, performers will share highlights from its body of work, including “Lux,” a piece about freedom, and the Boston premieres of “Home” and “Restore.” Doug Varone and Dancers has maintained a long commitment to the “storytelling of human nature,” touching audiences with versatile and technical ability.
Arrow Street Arts | Nov. 22-23
The dynamic “Metamorphosis” was conceived remotely during the COVID-19 lockdown, when artists began to develop a different, unique understanding of shared experiences between people. Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion created a score that blends music from Jlin, Tyondai Braxton, and Philip Glass, while choreographers Lil Buck and Jon Boogz (known as Movement Art Is, or MAI) wove together Memphis Jookin and popping styles. The result is quite astounding, a “stunning meditation on dualities in human nature — fluidity and rigidity, struggle and triumph, individuality and connection,” according to Celebrity Series’ website. The event is currently sold out, but ticket availability may change.
ICA | Nov. 21-22
New York-based performer and choreographer Leslie Cuyjet brings “For All Your Life,” a work that “investigates the value of Black life and death,” to the ICA. Through film and live performance, Cuyjet takes audiences on a journey through the life insurance business, studying “its darker links to the transatlantic slave trade, and how monetary value is affixed to human life.” Called “a tour de force” by the New York Times, “For All Your Life” is equal parts humorous and profoundly touching.
Crystal Ballroom | Nov. 21
Musical artists from Kotoko Brass will play West African dance music at the Somerville Theatre’s Crystal Ballroom. Mohammed Alidu, a singer and percussionist from the Dagomba tradition of Ghana, will join them, while Ghanaian dancers Maltiti Sadik and Saeed Kuubetesuri will enjoy the spotlight. Kotoko Brass is based in Boston, and its musicians hail from Ghana, Japan, Antigua and the United States. This celebration is presented by Global Arts Live.
ICA | Dec. 13-14
The contemporary dance company Anne Plamondon Productions is making a trek all the way from Canada for its Boston premiere, presented by Global Arts Live. The show that they’ll be delivering, “MYOKINE,” makes the human body a site of extraordinary beauty and power. Its title references the molecules secreted by muscles when the form is in motion. When released, they offer feelings of positivity. In this way, founder Plamondon believes that the body heals and renews itself during times of stress or unrest.
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