Tuesday November 15, 2011 - Constantine Baecher, a choreographer who also dances with the Royal Danish Ballet, is creating a new piece for New Chamber Ballet's upcoming performances. For the first time in recent seasons, I'm unable to attend either of NCB's evenings (poor planning on my part!) so I was grateful when NCB's director Miro Magloire helped arrange for me to see/photograph rehearsals of the works being created for the City Center event. I was especially curious to see what Mr. Baecher was cooking up, in that he'll be dancing in his own pas de deux; this will be only the second time since I've been acquainted with New Chamber Ballet that Miro has had a male dancer taking part.
Photographer Brian Krontz met me at the Baryshnikov Arts Center studio where he took the photos for this article.
Constantine's new duet is set to John Cage's 1940 score, Bacchanale for prepared piano, the first work that the composer - who became something of a specialist in writing for prepared piano - created for the instrument. A piano is 'prepared' by placing small clips or scraps of metal, plastic, wood or even cardboard on or under the piano strings. This creates a distorted, percussive 'echo' to pure sound of the musical note. The more strings that are prepared, the more jangling or clattering the music sounds to us. Pianist Melody Fader plays the Cage music for Constantine's as-yet-untitled ballet.
There was a special atmosphere of camaraderie in the studio since Constantine and his dancing partner Elizabeth Brown (above) are good friends and colleagues. Elizabeth, a mainstay at New Chamber Ballet, recently danced in Miro Magloire's intriguing dance-drama LITTLE BIRD for the SONiC festival at Joyce SoHo.
When we arrived, Constantine and Elizabeth were hopping about madly in the middle of the studio while Melody's clanking piano - which she aptly said made her think of a choo-choo train - was being insistently hammered.
Here are more of Brian's rehearsal images; click on each photo to enlarge:
I''ve spent many hours watching dancers in the studio but I can't recall a rehearsal where the participants were having this much sheer fun.
New Chamber Ballet will present this duet plus new works by Emery LeCrone and Miro Magloire on their Autumnn evening programmes, November 18th and 19th at City Center Studios. Ticket information here.
All photography by Brian Krontz.