NCB's spring performance in two weeks will feature four ballets, including one world premiere. Magloire's new ballet, Klavierstück, is a trio for two dancers and a pianist, set to Karlheinz Stockhausen's seminal Klavierstück IX. Another highlight will be Reflections II, a new solo for which Magloire created both the music and the choreography. Also on the program are Magloire's Aeolia, set to music by Georg Philipp Telemann, and his Silent Shadows to music by Giacinto Scelsi - two pieces that offer strikingly contrasting visions of dance to the sounds of the violin.

Don't miss this program! Tickets are on sale already - reserve your seats today!

Friday, March 28th at 8pm &
Saturday, March 29th at 8pm
New York City Center Studio 4
130 West 56th St, 4th floor (betw. 6th and 7th Ave)

New Chamber Ballet's upcoming performance features music from two towering figures of contemporary music: Giacinto Scelsi and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Giacinto Scelsi, Count of Alaya Valva, was a reclusive Italian nobleman and composer infatuated with eastern spirituality who wrote music often consisting of minute, continuous transitions, concentrating on only one or two notes. His violin solo Xnoybis, the score to Magloire's ballet Silent Shadows (photo), requires an unusual kind of virtuosity from the performer, along with a specially tuned violin. "The violin must be completely restrung, so that a single pitch can be easily played on all four strings simultaneously," explains NCB violinist Erik Carlson. "This also adds a technical challenge to playing the piece, because I need to relearn where to put my fingers in order to play each note."

German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who passed away last December at the age of 79, is widely regarded as one of the 20th century's most influential composers. His piano pieces, especially the stunning Klavierstück IX, have made history with their entirely new approach to composing. Less known are Stockhausen's attempts to relate his music to the human body, sometimes composing physical movement along with the sounds. "I like dancing - I love it," he once said in an interview. " Nevertheless, I purposely leave the rhythms of the body, I allow myself rhythms that are much more complicated and very often cannot be related to periodic rhythms of the body anymore, and that is very interesting." Magloire's new ballet to Klavierstück IX promises to bring the rhythms of the body back to this visionary music.

We are thrilled to be joined by a new dancer for our upcoming performance. Emery LeCrone hails from Greensboro, NC, and received her training at the North Carolina School of the Arts. She went on to perform with the North Carolina Dance Theater, dancing in works by George Balanchine, Dwight Rhoden and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux.

After relocating to New York last summer, she performed in the inaugural season of Christopher Wheeldon's company Morphoses at City Center. Emery is also a choreographer, and she will present a new work in April at the Kaye Playhouse, as part of Ballet Builders 2008.

In our upcoming performance, Emery will dance parts in Aeolia, Silent Shadows and Magloire's new ballet Klavierstück.

YouTube is rapidly growing into the dance world's most popular resource. After our first YouTube posting, the Pas de Deux from Fall, was viewed over 2,000 times in two months, we have added a new video: a condensed version of Aeolia in a live taping from the World Premiere in January.

Take a look, view it, rate it, add it to your favorites... You can even subscribe to NCB's YouTube channel to be alerted everytime we post a new video. Enjoy!

Save the dates! After a short hiatus in April, New Chamber Ballet will open the summer with a bang: on June 19th, the company will return to the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival to perform in its Inside/Out series, followed a week later by the final program of the season at New York's City Center Studios on June 27th and 28th.

The company's previous appearance at Jacob's Pillow in 2006 (photo) was an unforgettable experience for everyone involved, and left us eager to return to this National Historic Landmark site. If you want to find out what the "Pillow Magic" is all about, consider a trip to the scenic Berkshires this summer...

New Chamber Ballet's artists once again have been busy since the last show:
Lauren Toole and Damien Johnson performed in Los Angeles Ballet's spring season in works by George Balanchine and Melissa Barak (photo: LA Times, Damien Johnson in Balanchine's Four Temperaments)... Pianist Melody Fader toured to Chile with soprano Elisa Cordova. Presented by the US Embassy, the tour included recitals in Punta Arenas, Frutillar and Santiago de Chile... Emily Vonne SoRelle performed with Connecticut's Zig Zag Ballet at the Rich Forum in Stamford, Connecticut... Elizabeth Brown spent a week at the Silo, an arts center in Pennsylvania, in a residence with NCB guest choreographer Deborah Lohse's ad hoc ballet... Violinist Erik Carlson performed at contemporary music festivals in Denver and las Vegas...

Spring is here, and we're asking for your money again... Why? Ticket sales still cover only about 20% of the costs of each performance. We aim to keep our costs as low as possible, but there are rehearsal studio fees (a big item here in the city), performance space fees, music royalties, performer fees, printing costs, costuming and costume maintenance, sheet music costs, stamps, banking fees, advance ticket sale fees, PR costs...

All of these items are necessary to produce our little, bare bones performances. Instead of cutting back, we try to perform more to keep our art alive and you, our audience, happy. Not an easy task, but we can do it with your help! Please take a moment to go to our website and find out how you can support our work...