Above: New Chamber Ballet dancers Traci Finch and Holly Curran, costumed by Sarah Thea Swafford for the new Constantine Baecher ballet
Friday April 4th, 2014 - Five ballets - including three world premieres - were on the bill at New Chamber Ballet tonight. All of the works were performed to music composed within the past 60 years and all of it was played (and sung) live.
Miro Magloire's two newest creations were seen first, commencing with LONELY DANCE; this work for a single dancer is set to Karlheinz Stockhausen's Freundschaft which was expertly played by violinist Doori Na. The music veers from delicate to skittering to lyrical as the dancer - Holly Curran - periodically disappears behind a screen. Each time she emerges, her hair has been re-arranged, and so has her mood. She's blissful one moment, then languid, jittery, pensive, suggestive, frenzied...and the movement is not always strictly alinged to the music's rhythms. As a portrait of both dancer and musician, this is one of Miro's most imaginative works.
Delivering a second successful premiere, Miro's TILTING AND LEANING is a stylized and choreographically demanding work for three women on pointe; they are clad in sleek maroon body tights (Sarah Thea Swafford designed all the costumes for tonight's programme) and wear black toe shoes. At the Yamaha, pianist Melody Fader launches Pierre Boulez's Notations for piano, with some sweeping glissandi evolving into darkish misterioso passages and measures of mechanical music. Sarah Atkins, Traci Finch and Amber Neff strike structured poses in which they often balance against one another; with the dancers displaying optimum physical control, this body-to-body ballet somehow blends intimacy with detachment. The girls take on an aspect of ancient nymphs re-awakened in a contemporary setting.
Above: Miro Magloire, photographed by Amber Neff
Both of Miro's new works will prove to be valuable additions to the repertoire. After intermission, two more of his ballets were seen.
In the familiar SISTER, MY SISTER sibling rivals Amber Neff (dancer) and Charlott Mundy (soprano) almost come to blows as Charlotte continues to having annoy Amber with her wordless one-note vocalizing. They fight over possession of a phantom necklace: whichever girl has the necklace gets the upper hand. Melody Fader at the piano and violinist Doori Na (hidden behind a screen) accompany this domestic quarrel with Morton Feldman's Voice, Violin and Piano.
STAY WITH ME is a piece which invites deeper investigation into the relationship of the three dancers involved. For this ballet, Miro turns to music of Michel Galante - Music for Movement - which was brilliantly performed by Melody Fader and Doori Na. Commencing with Melody playing agitato in the piano's extreme upper register and Doori on a roller-coaster of swift chromatic scales - up and down - dancers Traci Finch and Holly Curran appear in a congenial pairing; the music settles into a kind of eerie tranquility as they dance in-sync and in mirror-image. A darkly-clad Sarah Atkins comes upon the scene and captures Holly's attention; Traci wthdraws leaving Sarah and Holly in a duet as the music turns turbulent. A strangely tense calm is restored, but we never know how the story resolves.
Constantine Baecher's EXALTATION OF LARKS, set in part to Cage's Litany For The Whale, is yet another intriguing entry from this choreographer. The hall is plunged into darkness as two singers - Kjersti Kveli and Charlotte Mundy - begin a wordless chant. Their pure voices have a gently transportive power. Tiny points of light appear like illuminated chunks of ice; these are sent skittering across the floor as the four dancers - Traci Finch, Amber Neff, Holly Curran and guest artist Kaitlyn Gilliland - awaken in the four corners of the space. Flourescent lights on the floor give off a soft glow; the singers begin to pace the perimeter and - looking a bit like mermaids in their silvery tights - the dancers roll languidly about. Drawing herself up, Kaitlyn moves upstage to perform a ritualistic solo as the lights are extinguished one by one. In this ballet, the sound of the voices evoke a feeling of sanctuary.