BWW Reviews: NCB Celebrates its Achievements, Reveals its Flaws

Anniversaries aren't only cause for celebration -- they're also pivotal moments of self-evaluation. They inspire reflection on the milestones of the past, introspective consideration of the present, and a longing gaze towards the journey ahead. This year, as it celebrates its tenth anniversary, New Chamber Ballet engages in these exciting and difficult tasks with a winter season that includes recreations of some of it earliest works, renovations of more recent ones, and premieres of some brand new ones. NCB presents these ballets as it always has, under the guidance of it's founder, artistic director, choreographer, and emcee, Miro Magloire, in Studio 5, a candidly cozy studio and performance space at City Center. While one performance can't entirely evince a decade-long artistic trajectory, one of NCB's recent programs showcased many of the strengths that make it a uniquely valuable member of New York's dance community, as well as many of the weaknesses that could hinder its development in the future.

An immediately compelling feature of any New Chamber Ballet performance stems from its performance space, City Center's Studio 5. This small venue, accessible from an elevator near City Center's back entrance on 56th Street, blurs the line between rehearsal and performance by displaying works of dance and theater in the very space in which they were created. The "in-studio" experience of Studio 5 adds singular appeal to NCB performances by allowing audiences to inspect ballet from a vantage point usually only afforded to dancers, their teachers, and choreographers. The surprisingly heavy thud of pointe shoes hitting the floor, the labored breathing of a dancer at work, the drama of an intent gaze under a furrowed brow -- these fleeting minutiae that are invisible in a typical theater come into sharp focus in Studio 5. Regardless of its quality, a performance in a space like this will be interesting to anyone who's truly fascinated by the art of dance.

A recent performance of "Program 3" from NCB's 2014-2015 anniversary season had plenty of interesting and compelling qualities in its own right. This program, guided by thoughtful and charming introductions from Magloire himself, featured four pieces from the company's past, one of which had been reworked for a world premiere this season.

The opening trio, Allegretto, Innocente, originally created by Magloire in 2010, was the most classical and the most lighthearted piece of the evening, demonstrating a playfully adventuresome side of Magloire's creativity. Throughout the piece, Sarah Atkins, Holly Curran, and Amber Neff hid themselves and parts of each other behind black satin curtains that doubled as togas, capes, and -- at the ballet's close -- a cocoon, bringing to life the balletic questions that must have inspired Magloire's choreography. What happens if you can only see a dancer's legs? Or only her arms? Are the black curtains the dancers used props, set pieces, or costumes, and what's the difference anyways? Magloire's choreography (set to Haydn's Piano Sonata in G Minor, cleanly performed by NCB pianist Melody Fader) played with these interesting questions, continually reposing them in new ways even as they came close to being answered. Atkins' performance in this number was technically stronger and more aesthetically pleasing than either of her colleagues, but Curran nonetheless showed moments of edginess that were memorable in contrast to Atkins' smooth agility.

Yet the choreographic wit Magloire displayed in Allegretto, Innocente was unfortunately harder to find in his other two pieces on this particular NCB program, Entangled and Raw. For Entangled, Magloire was inspired by how painters often "overpaint" their old canvases to create entirely new works, sometimes yielding work of great consequence. Magloire decided to re-premiere Entangled -- a work that NCB first performed last fall -- having significantly "overpainted" his original choreography, yet it seemed like a few more rounds of "overpainting" would be have been warranted. The double duet was clunky, dull, and shapeless, unfortunately bearing little obvious inspiration from the fascinating violin caprices by Paganini that accompanied it. (NCB Violonist Doori Na played these daunting pieces quite capably.) Raw -- a duet that closed the show -- suffered from similar choreographic weaknesses, although it's interesting costumes and focused development of novel weight sharing movements contained fleeting moments of intrigue.

The most compelling piece of the evening was Viduity, a meditation on how dance can be used as a means for understanding, expressing, and overcoming grief, choreographed in 2007 by NCB resident choreographer and former member of the Royal Danish Ballet, Constantine Baecher. Viduity, choreographed for four dancers in black leotards with long, removable velvet skirts, displayed many of the key elements of truly compelling dance: a personal, yet universal subject matter that the choreography aimed to explore and develop (as opposed to merely express); unique costumes that complemented and informed the dancer's movements; engaged and committed performances by dancers and musicians alike. NCB's dancers exposed these elements with solid performances, allowing the gravitas of Baecher's movements, patterns, and steps to speak louder than the technical prowess required to complete them. Magloire would do his company well to continue inviting artists as engaging and inventive as Baecher to work with NCB. Magloire's own artistic vision would benefit as much as NCB's audiences.

While it's hardly an infant dance company, New Chamber Ballet still has growing to do. The performances meant to celebrate its achievements also revealed areas in which it must improve. Magloire's brainchild, propelled by the obvious dedication he has for it, creates valuable opportunities for close-up observation of ballet's finest details in an artistic field typically (or most noticeably) dominated by the large and the grandiose. (Have you seen the mind-numbing, city-block-long video ads for the Rockettes' Spring Spectacular in Times Square?) Yet these unique qualities are useless without a vision that can consistently capitalize on them. NCB hasn't yet accomplished this challenging task, but one hopes Magloire has the fortitude to complement celebration with fearless reflection during his group's anniversary season. It isn't just the moments of success that make anniversaries so special, as much as the impetus they inspire to create the successes of the future.

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