New York
On the evening of February 11, Miro Magloire presented his New Chamber Ballet in a program of works set to music by mainly contemporary composers. With no sets, lighting, or wings, you don’t get much more in medias res than attending Magloire’s intimate and deliciously choreographed pieces. And the recipe that Magloire has come up with is a winner: one part originality, one part hard work, and one part earnest love of dance.
Why do I like Magloire’s choreography so much? In a word: integrity. In a dance world increasingly flooded with cabaret and Broadway-influenced razzmatazz, that counts for a lot. Integrity of music, dance, and space form a triumvirate, of sorts—akin, perhaps, to the unities of classical theater. Magloire’s company is like a small family, and in February he used his favorite musicians, the brilliant pianist Melody Fader and virtuoso violinist Doori Na.
The performance took place in the intimate setting of City Center’s Studio 5, which looks and feels like it came out of the 1940s or ’50s, an adventure in retro-chic. Audience members were seated in the round (in a hexagon, actually) in this small space, and Magloire introduced each dance and the performers. It’s a custom that has endeared him to his small flock of followers, who feel as if they are getting a view into the choreographer’s mind with each new dance.
“At this point, my choreography is partly informed by the space itself,” Magloire explains. Technically, chamber music is defined as a group of musicians of 12 or fewer, performing without a conductor, so the company’s name is well chosen: “After the first few years of presenting to the public, we realized that we needed a name. So we picked this one. It seemed to fit what we were doing.”
Magloire’s trajectory as dancer and artist is also unique. He didn’t attend Juilliard or one of Europe’s famed ballet schools or conservatories. He began as an adolescent pianist composing music at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. There he studied with the Argentine-born Mauricio Kagel, a contemporary and colleague of modernist giants such as Stockhausen and Boulez, which may explain his affinity for contemporary composers. And under the rigid European system, by the time Magloire decided on a career as a choreographer he had already passed the age limit imposed by German dance conservatories. So he came to America, where he enrolled at Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham: “In the United States, as long as you can pay tuition, you can find a place to study.”
This particular example of capitalist serendipity is welcome, as the world would be an artistically poorer place had Miro Magloire not brought his talents to the stage. And his approach is deceptively refreshing: “My responsibility is twofold,” he explains. “To my performers, on the one hand, and to my audience on the other. It is a fine balancing act.” This most recent presentation followed in that tradition. Some pieces worked better than others, but the overall quality of the dances and narrative (as well as the four contemporary composers) he presented made it my favorite chamber ballet performance to date.
Magloire began the evening with Fast Forward, set to Beethoven’s lively and rhythmic Rondo for Violin and Piano. Sarah Atkins, Traci Finch, and Cassidy Hall performed in pairs, wearing black one-piece leotards with short shirts, designed by Sarah Thea. Their quick footwork and gracious arms matched the sparkling music. This formal, finely constructed trio built to a delicate crescendo, full of sharp jetés and quick changes of direction, a perfect opening ballet. Another trio—Gravity—followed, performed by Elizabeth Brown, Gracie Holway, and Amber Neff, and set to a solo violin by Friedrich Cerha, a contemporary Austrian composer best known for his completion of Alban Berg’s opera Lulu. The dancers moved through the uneasy, dissonant music supporting and leaning on each other, sometimes in threes and sometimes in pairs while the odd woman out carefully watched the unfolding action.
They moved slowly and deliberately, as if in their own private world, keeping their eyes focused on each other. It was an abstract universe, but their wary, careful moves and intense gaze lent human warmth. At times, the dancers pumped their fists forward. Then one would squat while the other held on to her and pulled herself onto her back or arms. Then they reversed roles.
The third dance, Anna’s Last Day, is a ghost story of sorts, Anna (Holway) and her sister (Atkins) re-enacting the sister’s suicide as Anna watches horrified and helpless. The bare setting—two black chairs seated next to one another—served as a locus for the unfolding drama. Atkins remained seated throughout while Holway, in a long white evening gown, got up and danced around her gently, at times, and at others vigorously twirled in ever more desperate circles. They sat next to each other as well, eating from imaginary jars, and to the dismay of her sister, Atkins finally drank poison: She grabbed her stomach, pivoted, and fell to the ground, hair ragged, a forlorn and panicked look on her face.
The evening’s only première, Sunrise, set to music by Ryan Brown, was notably lighter in tone. Attired in colorful pastels of pink, yellow, brown, and magenta, the four dancers (Atkins, Cassidy Hall, Holway, and Neff) held hands in the round, as if in an ancient fertility dance. They changed positions, pivoted off each other, then fell to the floor, forming different geometric positions. They accelerated, spun, and jumped in the air, sylph-like. They threw arms up and back down to their sides. Then all sat down.
The evening’s last performance, the wonderfully intense Dark Forest, set to the music of Michel Galante, was danced by Brown, Finch, Hall, and Neff, all attired in black leotards with fringed sleeves. They moved around, gracefully lifting and supporting each other in varied poses—a quiet end to another lovely evening at the New Chamber Ballet, and a glimpse into the inner workings of one choreographer’s agile mind.
Christopher Atamian is a New York-based writer and critic who contributes to the Huffington Post and New York Times Book Review.
