Jorma Elo’s Le Sacre Du Printemps
In 2009, Boston Ballet Resident Choreographer Jorma Elo premiered his own version of Le Sacre du Printemps as part of a tribute program to Les Ballets Russes. For Elo, returning to Le Sacre du Printemps has always been less about reconstruction than reflection. In conversation, he shared how his interpretation engages with the ballet’s deep-seated themes of community, identity, and social systems, and how those themes can be felt differently across 1913, 2009, and today.
Elo did not have any existing ties to the original work, first seeing it in full when he was around 40 years old, after his performing career. He describes this distance from the original as a source of creative freedom, allowing him to claim ownership of the ballet’s themes, and to build his interpretation through direct connection with the score and the dancers, rather than strict fidelity to Nijinsky’s depiction of a primal ritual centered on sacrifice for the common good.
From this freedom emerges Elo’s exploration of the individual’s role in community, whether it be through integration or self-isolation. “There’s no way of saying, ‘I’m going to rip away what’s around me and just do it my way.’ We have to integrate ourselves, as human beings, into these new rules. And that’s bound to create conflict—hopefully not too much—but conflict on a personal level and on a relationship level.”
With a focus on how we approach each other, Elo’s choreography is a step away from the uncontrolled and raw movements of Nijinsky’s ballet. “I didn’t want to make it into something ecstatic or rhythmical, like a group chant, which may be an element of the original,” Elo explains. “I wanted the individuals to be very aware of their instrument. Even when dancers are fully inside the moment of the music, the form has to remain clear. Nothing is ecstatically thrown into space.” Elo’s piece is punctuated with clean shapes, intricate isolations, and dynamic partner work.
Nearly 17 years later, Elo is re-approaching the work and discovering multiple ways this approach has evolved, one of which is his relationship to the music. “Sixteen years ago, I was trying to hold the reins—24 horses in front of you—trying to understand where they were all going. But now I feel a freedom with it.” That freedom comes from a deeper trust in Stravinsky’s score, which Elo describes not as a series of phrases or counts, but as a three-dimensional architecture. Rather than restraining the music, his choreography allows it moments of release, responding to its depth and complexity as it moves through the dancers. This evolving perspective is echoed in the updated set design, which has been pared back and abstracted, removing its original flaming backdrop that, as Elo notes, “was taking away from the subtleties I could create.”
Elo is keenly aware that the way community looks today is markedly different than it did in 2009. “We’re trying to connect to a new code—how we interact as individuals, as couples, as a community. We’re overwhelmed by the number of sources where we receive information. There’s a whole new rulebook we have to mold into something that still allows us to feel human.” He also notes the aspect of revisiting the work with the community of Boston Ballet dancers, some of whom danced it in 2009, and others who are “learning something old but recreating something new.”
For Elo, the poignancy of Le Sacre du Printemps has never rested in explanation. He resists the idea that dance must be decoded, believing instead that its meaning emerges through shared experience. “You can’t explain it,” he says. “You have to live it together.” That belief reframes the original ballet’s infamous 1913 reception not as a failure of understanding, but as evidence of its visceral impact.
