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Miro Magloire's New Chamber Ballet returns to its home base of City Center Studio 5 with performances November 3 & 4 at 8 PM. The company, recently returned from performances in Germany, will premiere two Magloire works to music by Bach and Reiko Fueting, along with dance repertory to music by Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, and John Cage.
Receiving its world premiere is "Schattentanz," a trio to music by Reiko Fueting, made possible by the Company's third commission from the O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation. Collaborating for the second time with Reiko Fueting, Magloire's concept was to interweave music and dance in intricate ways. The score is inspired by the musician's physical gestures as much as the sounds they produce, and leaves room for the dancers' movements to be heard as well. Contemporary composer Fueting is a native of Germany, and trained there and at Rice University in Houston Tx; Manhattan School of Music; and Seoul National U in South Korea. Recipient of many prizes, grants and scholarships, the composer joined the Manhattan School of Music theory faculty in 2000, becoming a member of the composition faculty five years later and then department chair of theory.
Magloire will show the premiere of an expanded version of "Bach," shown at an earlier season. Commissioned by Richard and Leslie Curtis, "Bach" is set to JS Bach's preludes and fugues in F sharp Minor and Prelude in D sharp Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier.
The Company will repeat "Morning Song," premiered at last June's season and set to John Cage's "Cheap Imitation," originally written for Merce Cunningham's company in a version for two pianos. The composer subsequently made several arrangements of this work, one for solo piano, another for orchestra, and finally for solo violin, the version Magloire is using. The clever new work will be performed by superb NCB violinist Doori Na and soloist Elizabeth Brown.
"Lace," set to Berio's "Sequenza VIII" for violin, "showcases Miro's fascination with clear, intentional movement and plays with stillness versus agitation, statuesque poses, and imagery of a single tree twisting and quaking in the wind. Italian composer Luciano Berio paints the backdrop to Magloire's choreography while the dancers command the stage with poise and dominance." (Annie West, broadwayworld.com)
Magloire chose "Notations" by Pierre Boulez for his "Tilting/Leaning," premiered in 2014 when the Company celebrated its 10th birthday. "Dressed in Sarah Thea Swafford's sleep wine-colored body tights," wrote Phillip Gardner, "dancers Sarah Atkins, Traci Finch, and Amber Neff (who will repeat their roles) go from intense to playful and back again in choreography where they balance against one another in unique and quirky shapes." (oberonsgrove, January 2015) Siobhan Burke, reviewing in The New York Times, remarked that "The title doesn't do justice to the inventiveness of the action: their weight-sharing, limb-locking, head-butting and other modes of manipulating one another's bodies, often in deliberately arduous ways." (April 2014)
