New Chamber Ballet review

Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet returned to the City Center studio’s last weekend with a four-piece program including two World Premieres. In an age of recorded music, (an epidemic worsened by hard economic times) Magloire’s company continues it’s commitment to accompaniment by live musicians on stage. New Chamber Ballet reminds us what is enduring about the art form rather than the trappings of ballet. With its focus on essentials and elegant accompaniment, NCB performs without stage lighting or technical elements and with minimal costumes.

Two commissioned from Deborah Lohse (Artistic Director of Ad Hoc Ballet) with original score by Stefan Weisman is a duet for two women which opens the evening. Emily SoRelle Adams begins by tracing her own body with her fingers and then to transfer the shapes into the space beside her. Her hands seem to be conjuring another body out of the thin air. Emery LeCrone joins the piece perhaps as the summoned being and the two create an intimate and mesmerizing duet until LeCrone  exits leaving Adams to continue her methodical tracing.

Magloire’s training as a composer is evident throughout the remaining three pieces in the evening. Using scores ranging from Telemann’s Fantaisies for solo violin to Morton Feldman’s Extensions and Projections, Magloire shows a highly developed sensibility for scoring.  As a choreographer, his relationship to the music is often complex, neither allowing the score to dictate the movement nor fighting against the score for dominance. This relationship produces some mixed results.

Echo, Magloire’s premiere on the program for five dancers struggles to become a unified piece and only partially succeeds. While each movement stands well on its own, they don’t combine well with the music and long stretches of silence. Monologue also shows Magloire’s ingenuity at inventing movement but the piece doesn’t seem to fully gel. Elizabeth Brown’s solo is danced very well and the movement “accompaniment” by Emily SoRelle Adams and Madeline Deavenport has some evocative moments but taken as a whole, it is more of a single mood rather than a linear piece. Aeolia overcomes both of the shortcomings that hamper the middle two works. The allegro for five dancers is well composed, making good use of canoned movements.

Miro Magloire’s vision for the revival of chamber ballet is a huge asset to New York City. His artistic devotion to the elements that make ballet unique as an art form over the externalities that often overshadow it is a welcome reminder.