BWW Reviews: Four Recent Pieces from the New Chamber Ballet

A production by New Chamber Ballet is an up-close and personal affair-and in more ways than one. The company performs in City Center's Studio 5, a pristine and large-enough space with an undeniable aura of old-world charm. And there's a wonderfully collaborative, anti-hierarchical feeling to the Ballet's most recent pieces. All of these-from stripped-down works such as In a Simple Black Dress and Sister, My Sister to classicizing ensemble pieces such as In the Parlour and The Other Woman-were choreographed by New Chamber Ballet's founder and artistic director, Miro Magloire. Dancers, musicians, and the occasional singer all share the same stage here. What's more, Magloire doesn't only stand up to introduce each new ballet; he also rearranges the props and music stands.

This kind of closeness isn't a bad thing by any means. (After reviewing three Lincoln Center extravaganzas in a row, I've almost forgotten the simple yet infinitely expressive sound of a ballet shoe hitting a wooden floor. Thank you, New Chamber Ballet, for letting me hear that sound again.) But while Magloire is a choreographer who knows how to invest a touch or a twitch with expressive power, he's also a choreographer who-when it comes to theme and narrative-repeatedly over-reaches. No, he doesn't quite bury his dancers' talents under high-concept shenanigans. In fact, Magloire and his performers are at their best when they're at their most playful and experimental-when they indulge the sulks and the tense silences and the gamesome little sequences you'd never expect from a company with an august name like New Chamber Ballet. Though In the Parlour and The Other Woman occasionally take themselves too seriously, even these two dances are tempered-and, for the most part, enriched-by strokes of whimsicality.

The company's latest showcase started off with In the Parlour, a ballet "in which three characters are engaging in a vivid battle of values pitting strict rules against free spirit." That's how the program describes it, but the actual tone of the piece is much lighter-thanks to its rose-tinted costumes, its lively accompaniment (Mozart's Violin Sonata in E Minor), and its many, many moments of good-humored pantomime. In In the Parlour, a prim creative type (ElizaBeth Brown) and a snide authority figure (Sarah Atkins) vie with one another. Though a third, innocent persona (Holly Curran) is caught between these two, In the Parlour shouldn't be taken as a depiction of three fully-formed characters. It's more like an especially involved game of Chinese checkers-and that's part of its allure.

In a Simple Black Dress certainly isn't as busy as In the Parlour. Here you have only one dancer (Amber Neff) and one musician (Doori Na, confidently performing Pierre Boulez's Anthèmes for violin). Neff has an odd formal constraint to deal with-uneven footwear, a ballet shoe on one foot, a slipper on the other. This could have become a gimmick, sure. But Neff both plays into the awkward set-up (bends down, swings her arms, lets her whole body become awkward) and plays against it with more graceful sequences. And of course, the "little black dress" crowd should be the last people to mess up their footwear.

Rising to such formal challenges is one thing that this New Chamber Ballet showcase does best, and continues to do with Sister, My Sister. The challenge here is to integrate voice, dance, and instrumental music, and Sister, My Sister manages to do this by presenting the two "sisters" as pared-down types-a counterpoint in and of themselves. There's the ebullient soprano (Charlotte Mundy) and her moody dancer sibling (Amber Neff, in a turquoise dress this time). I know how this sounds; two sisters in summery clothes (and fighting over an invisible necklace, no less) should be much too precious for its own good. What saves it from such preciousness is the score: Morton Feldman's Voice, Violin, and Piano. This music has plenty of pauses, and each one of these stops, though brief, is as loaded with the beauty and loneliness of a long, quiet Sunday afternoon.

The final piece of the night, The Other Woman, is "a minimalistic look at a ménage-a-trois." This theme seems modern, even racy in a way that the material in Sister, My Sister certainly isn't, yet the treatment is actually more traditional. For its score, The Other Woman uses Bach's Sonata in B Minor-an uncannily good fit for the atmosphere of propriety, alienation, and quiet menace that surrounds the entire piece. Good material, certainly, but not material that is served particularly well by a pants role: in this case, Sarah Atkins as the one male member of the "ménage-a-trois." As in In the Parlour, Atkins mixes intentional coldness with finely-executed flourishes. But it would take the right male dancer to give The Other Woman the high-strung, implosive feeling it needs-to make it more than sexually-suggestive playacting.

For my part, I sat down to The Other Woman expecting a balletic version of Closer or Sex, Lies, and Videotape. There is something vast and substantial about these films, despite their small casts, yet The Other Woman never leaves the same impression of magnitude. Maybe it's because the dancers (Brown at her most stately, Curran at her most charged) are not given time to really delve into their personas and, perhaps, play against type a bit. Maybe it's simply because The Other Woman uses the same folding chairs that have been used for everything else, audience included. That's the odd thing about watching New Chamber Ballet; a fair amount of the time, you'll sit there enchanted with how much Magloire achieves with a few performers and a few props; yet every so often, you'll sit there saying to yourself "This is pretty good. But is that all?"