Boston Ballet’s Winter Experience was nothing short of magical—yet another successful production put on by the company led by Executive Director Ming Min Hui and Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen. Boston Ballet’s well-known Fall, Winter, and Spring Experiences highlight a variety of unique works that delve beyond traditional ballets.

The 2025 Winter Experience was a culmination of four works—two Balanchine programs, Mozartiana and Symphony in Three Movements, Claudia Schreier’s Slipstream, and Leonid Yakobson’s Vestris. George Balanchine was probably the name that attracted the most tickets purchased for this performance. After all, the co-founder of the New York City Ballet’s choreography was immensely groundbreaking in the twentieth century, solidifying a new style of ballet in his name, and seeing his work performed by Boston Ballet was definitely a privilege. Yet, despite this, it was Claudia Schreier’s striking Slipstream that caught my attention and left me in awe by the end of the performance.

The eighteen ensemble dancers flew on stage in a blur of electric blue and green, wearing uniform leotards and full bodysuits. The female costumes were open back and strapless, a simple silhouette with an intricately-patterned design. Immediately, the vibrant colors,found only in nature, brought to mind a peacock performing a mating dance in a tropical forest. The large arm movements mimicking flapping feathers, jerky head turns, and geometric shape formations were so obviously reminiscent of such animals.

Sure enough, WBUR’s Shira Laucharoen wrote on Schreier’s debut of the piece back in 2022, stating that “Schreier was inspired by starlings, which have a unified identity within a group, but also find their own paths.” So my aha! moment wasn’t too far off—starlings are, in fact, a small perching bird known for the rich cool tone hues of turquoise and indigo that decorate their feathers.

But if the color of the costumes weren’t a dead giveaway of the natural world Schreier was inspired by, her music choice for the piece sure was. Slipstream is choreographed and performed to Tanner Porter’s “Six Sides From the Shape of Us,” an opus heavy with percussive elements, like bass drums and cymbals, that emphasize the feeling of wonder in nature reminiscent of soundtrack composers such as Hans Zimmer and James Horner.

The piece, as according to the Red Shoe Company who previously performed it, is based on the six sides of a hexagon and natural symmetry of the bee colony—how we as individuals are guests of a larger ecosystem. Schreier “wanted to find work from a living, female composer, adding that the music had an arc that takes a listener ‘through every color of emotion and has joyful swells, playful percussion and stabs you in the heart.’”

The theme that an individual is part of a bigger picture pulsed throughout every part of the production. As the story plays out, the female lead experiences exclusion and loneliness as she stands alone on stage with backlit lighting before the ensemble sweeps back in. “She is a bit of an outsider… as she goes from start to finish,” says Schreier. There is a sense of organized chaos within the ensemble as they run on and off stage, working together to create beautifully intricate formations. The women in the show, leaned backward almost parallel to the ground like a flower blooming, was one of my favorite images of the performance.

Slipstream is one of the most fascinating and eye-opening works I’ve seen, embodying both ballet and contemporary styles. The work may be the newest on the program, but perhaps that is what makes it unique. As Schreier says—and I agree—the choreography is not dated; rather, it is “fresh and alive.”