Magloire's New Chamber Ballet Comes To City Center Studio 5

Miro Magloire's New Chamber Ballet continues its series with the world premiere of Sanctum, set to music by two major composers, Kaija Saariaho and Karin Rehnqvist, with guest singers Charlotte Mundy, Mary MacKenzie, and Elisa Sutherland of Ekmeles joining the resident Magloire ensemble of dancers and musicians. Also on the program is Magloire's Morning Song, a solo to music by John Cage.

The Company will appear Monday & Tuesday, February 18 & 19 at 7:30 PM in its home base of City Center Studio 5, 130 West 56th Street.

The evening will see the World Premiere of Magloire's Sanctum, for five dancers, the resident New Chamber Ballet musicians, and guest Ekmeles singers Charlotte Mundy, Mary MacKenzie and Elisa Sutherland. According to Magloire: "Sanctum describes either a sacred place or a privately secluded one. The ballet evokes both, brought to life by the music of two of the most famous living composers: Kaija Saariho and Karin Rehnqvist." In a rare collaboration, New Chamber Ballet's dancers and musicians, and the stunning singers of Ekmeles join forces to create a 70-minute celebration of sounds, bodies, and movement, created by Magloire in the Company's trademark up-close, in-the-round style.

About the music, Magloire remarks: "Sanctum is bookended by vocal music: Saariaho's Changing Lights and From The Grammar of Dreams, in which the singers also dance with the dancers; and Rehnqvist's Davids Nimm, a bone-chilling shepherdesses' call that closes the performance.

The center section is left to violin and piano with several Saariaho compositions, as well as Rehnqvists' Dans." Born in Finland and now a resident of Paris, Saariaho is one of today's most popular composers. Her opera L'amour de loin was was recently performed by the Metropolitan Opera. Swedens' Rehnqvist is also an acclaimed conductor. As a composer, her range extends to chamber, orchestral, stage, and vocal music.

Sanctum was underwritten in part by Charles and Deborah Adelman, and by the Amphion Foundation.

As a prelude to Sanctum, the evening will open with Morning Song, a Magloire solo for Elizabeth Brown, set to John Cage's Cheap Imitations for violin. Philip Gardner, reviewing in Oberon's Grove, found the work "sublime," adding that Brown "moves with innate grace and feminine power through ritualistic motifs that make (one) think of the great Isadora Duncan solos - right down to the passages of allegro work that Duncan often added in - but with the added glamour of Morning Song being danced on point."

New Chamber Ballet - Looking Ahead: The Company will again perform Stray Bird - A Danced Tribute to Ursula Mamlok, April 11 & 12 at the German Academy New York, and March 9 & 10 at the German Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Exact dates for NCB's City Center performances in April and June t.b.a. www.newchamberballet.com