New Chamber Ballet opened their 2014/2015 season -- the company's 10th -- on September 19 and 20 at City Center Studio 5 with three new works by Artistic Director Miro Magloire: Fast Forward, In The Cold, and Raw. Along with the world premieres, the night included Magloire's Tilting/Leaning and the company's choreographer-in-residence Constantine Baecher's exciting work: Happy Dance of the Wild Skeletons set to Bacchanale by John Cage.

The evening begins with Fast Forward, a lively number that reminds every dancer (of a certain age) what is was like to fast-forward the VHS tape searching for a specific moment in their favorite dance video. Like in an hurried search, the quickness with which the dancers flutter about allows little time to linger on any one moment for too long. We are always excited about where the dancers are off to next as the focus shifts continuously, rarely allowing our eyes to rest. Set to Beethoven’s Rondo, Fast Forward is a delightful piece to open the show.

In The Cold, set to Erik Satie’s Pieces Froides: Danses De Travers begins with the dancer dropping her torso, swinging it upward and catching it only to bounce it back to the repetitive nature of a swing. Like the beginning, many of the sequences are frontally positioned allowing the audience to see the breadth of the movement contrasting with phases of folding arms slowly across the body, caving inward. The solo dancer at times seems liberated in tossing herself to and fro, but in the end returns to what the viewer sees to be inevitable: a body succumbing to the coldness.

The last of Magioire's premiere works, Raw explores the use of another's body to move and is ripe with intricate partnering and eye-catching imagery enhanced by the music: Klangwolfe by Mauricio Kagel. It begins with an image that will reappear of wrapped, interlocked bodies. As in Magloire's Tilting/Leaning, one might ask if the movement is dictated by interaction between the bodies and not by any individual agency. In both pieces, the dancers conjoin bodies, in a sense, each performing the role of support, prompt, excuse to continue. Unlike Tilting/Leaning, the dancers of Raw are so connected that they seem to be under each others' skin. Between the two, there is a deep intimacy, even magnetism. One may wonder what keeps them falling back into each others' arms and what exactly is pulling them apart? By returning to the initial image, we see a sort of restart at play. Each time, they take a different path, a new series of movements that proves to be just as intense and full of conflict between the two. Are they trying to change? Trying to make the relationship work? In the end, they still seem to be writhing, stretching under the skin of their relationship.  

Before the final piece, Magloire invites the audience to surround all four edges of the stage instigating a change of audience perspective. Choreographed by Constantine Baecher, Happy Dance of the Wild Skeletons is an artistic expression of every young girl's sleepover experience with intricate hand-clapping games, chasing, and lots of fun. Wearing pajama-like costumes, socked feet and braided hair, the dancers jerk and fling loosely, not without beautifully executing challenging choreography. One might remember times of singing and dancing wildly into hairbrushes to the songs of Paula Abdul. Throughout the piece, braided hair becomes looser and looser until the final moments when the braids fall out completely. We see long, straight hair tossed around adding another limb, which dances just as vigorously. The energy remained high until waning temporarily, first in a fall and recover section, next in one of heavy bounces. In these times, the dancers seemed to recharge before getting a second wind again and again until finally the girls fall into a hug and crash into sleep. One will remember those sleepovers where excitement trumps exhaustion for as long as it can until sleep finally takes over. And sitting cross-legged on the floor, on the side of the stage was a wonderful way to view this piece. We might have lost some of the fun from those distant seats. Full of nostalgia, the audience wore happy memories and large grins as the performance came to a close.

To learn more about New Chamber Ballet's 2014/2015 season, visit https://www.newchamberballet.com/