BWW Reviews: Miro Magloire's New Chamber Ballet Brings Contemporary Music and More to City Center Studio

Miro Magloire's New Chamber Ballet opened its 2013-14 season on September 6 & 7 with performances at City Center Studios in New York. It's a simple setting with no lighting, which adds to direct connection it has with the audience.

Mr. Magloire introduced each piece with information, poise, and humor.

Three of the five ballets presented were created to the music of contemporary composers Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, and Rebecca Saunders. All the dances were choreographed by Mr. Magloire. His early education in music and composition has given him his thorough musical background and the passion to share these composers with his dancers and his public.

The program opened with Klavierstuck, performed with passion by pianist, Melody Fader, center stage. The dancers, ElizaBeth Brown and Holly Curran, began sitting on the piano bench with the pianist, making their way around the piano and never straying far from it throughout the piece. This work was intended to be a tribute to the composer but became a memorial when Stockhausen suddenly passed away, just before the opening.

The only piece of the evening without live musicians was Oracle, in which the only sounds were made by bell bracelets worn on one ankle by each of the three dancers, Sarah Atkins, Holly Curran, and Traci Finch. The bells sounded as the dancers moved. Oracle was premiered this weekend.

In A Simple Black Dress, a signature piece of New Chamber Ballet, Amber Neff danced wearing one pointe shoe and one ballet shoe. She appeared both spirited and conflicted. The gifted violinist, Doon Na, accompanied her with the piece Anthemes, composed for violin by composer, Pierre Boulez.

Doon Na on violin and Melody Foder, on piano, returned to play Rebecca Saunder's Duo for violin and piano for the ballet, Anna's Last Day. This was performed by the strong, passionate Sarah Atkins as Anna. Her dancing was engaging, while it appeared d to be caged. It seemed that the walls tried to stop her movement while she danced the character of a woman consumed by guilt over the death of her sister. The other character, Anna's deceased younger sister, was played by Amber Neff. The character had very little dancing to do. For the most part, she sat in a chair, miming licking a bowl and her fingers.

The final piece of the evening was The Letter, danced with lots of attitude and emotion by ElizaBeth Brown and Holly Curran, to Joseph Haydn's Sonata No. 50 in D Major, well performed by Melody Fader on piano.

New Chamber Ballet's upcoming schedule includes a September 20, 2013 performance on the Moving Sounds Festival at Bohemian National Hall, NYC, where they will perform a program of new Magloire works to contemporary music by American and Austrian composers. The Company then travels to Germany for their first international performances, in Cologne and Dortmund. In January, Magloire's choreography will be featured for an evening of dramatic vocal works by Benjamin Britten.

Photo Credit: Kristen Lodoen Linder