The third program of our 2008-09 season presents four ballets by Constantine Baecher and Miro Magloire, including a world premiere.

Two whispering pieces for violin and piano by American composer Morton Feldman are the inspiration for Magloire's world premiere, a solo performed by Elizabeth Brown.

It will be joined on the program by Magloire's Romantic Pieces, a lushly danced trio to music by Antonin Dvorak, and his Klavierstück in which the piano takes center stage, set to a pounding score by Karlheinz Stockhausen.

A highlight of the performance will be Constantine Baecher's Viduity, a poignant study of mourning set to a piano sonata by Leos Janacek.

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

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

How do you dance to 'avant-garde' music? We asked NCB dancers Emily SoRelle Adams, Elizabeth Brown, Emery LeCrone, Denise Small and Lauren Toole about their experiences with tackling unusual scores. (The complete interview is available on our website - here is an excerpt.)

What was your first impression when you heard the music?

Denise: I was curious about how I was going to dance to it. I couldn't hear the underlying rhythm.
Emery: I just remember thinking, "this is not going to be a piece I am going to be able to count." It was different than anything I had ever heard or been exposed to as a dancer.
Emily: I was very surprised at both its jarring intensity and subtle vagueness. I was overwhelmed by the thought of performing to it; there seemed to be no structure or pattern that I could follow.
Elizabeth: I really enjoyed the music. It was refreshing to hear music that was not classical, but still beautiful and engaging. I get an eerie sensation from this music, that's what I like most about it.
Lauren: Dancing is a physical manifestation of my emotional response to the music. Adue, for example, took a while to feel like a cohesive experience of music and dancing. At first I felt rather disjointed in it. But the more we rehearsed, the more I was able to relax into the choreography and discover a flow to the music...

After a two-year absence, violinist Ariana Kim will return to perform with New Chamber Ballet for the company's upcoming winter program. Alongside pianist Melody Fader, she will perform Anton Dvorak's Four Romantic Pieces, as well as two works by composer Morton Feldman.

Since last appearing with New Chamber Ballet, Ariana has made her New York recital debut in Carnegie's Weill Hall, and recently completed an interim season as acting concertmaster of the Louisiana Philharmonic in New Orleans. She is currently a senior artist of the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, lauded by the Minneapolis Star Tribune as "a superb musician, playing with assurance and flair." She lives in Chicago and New York City, where she completes her D.M.A. degree at the Juilliard School, studying with Robert Mann.

Last month, guest choreographer Deborah Lohse began work on a new ballet she is creating for New Chamber Ballet, to a commissioned score by composer Stefan Weisman.

During a few days of intensive rehearsals at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Lohse sketched out sections of the ballet with NCB dancers Emily SoRelle Adams and Emery LeCrone (pictured, in rehearsal.) Later in the process, Stefan Weisman also joined rehearsals to catch a glimpse of the steps before starting work on the score, which will be for piano and violin.

The finished ballet will premiere on March 27th and 28th and remain in NCB's repertory, while an adapted version will be performed by Lohse's own company, ad hoc Ballet, later in the spring.

In the coming weeks, you will be able to follow the creation process of this ballet on Deborah Lohse's blog on the Joyce Theater website.

New Chamber Ballet has recently presented several ballets set to scores by the avant-garde composers of the 1950s and 60s - music that is rarely played today even in concert halls.

Most of these composers are now dead, and their music is not only avoided but increasingly sneered at as an excessive 'mistake' by writers and younger musicians. A bit of patricide from the younger generation is normal, but hardly explains the level of discomfort and outright disdain with which the musical establishment approaches so many masterworks of the past century.

Perhaps we got off to a bad start. Minor tensions between composers and their audience have been a part of music since its beginnings. But not until the mid-19th Century, when Richard Wagner styled himself as the lone voice of integrity in a barbarian, philistine world, did it erupt into open enmity. By the mid-twentieth Century, a similar attitude had become the norm among young composers. In their eyes, the continuing development of musical language required an outright war against the - admittedly very stuffy - musical establishment. (Note the use of the word "avant-garde" - a military term!)

Instead of evaluating individual pieces of music, the public discourse soon focused on the rift between conservatives and progressives - as silly a distinction as any in the realm of music. For the audience, listening to New Music became a political character test. The actual experience of a work of art was, in most cases, lost.

But time has moved on. With the death of their creators, the masterworks of the late 20th century have entered a new, interesting phase of their existence. We no longer need to treat them as New Music. We can simply treat them as music...

Here's what New Chamber Ballet's artists have been up to since the last show:

Company member Emery LeCrone was featured in an article in the New York Times about the Columbia Ballet Collaborative, for which she choreographed a ballet, Figurine, last fall. (photo, Emery rehearsing Figurine) She will also appear in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Adriana Lecouvreur next month... Maddie Deavenport just returned from Philadelphia where she danced in Pennsylvania Ballet's Nutcracker... Violinist Erik Carlson recently joined the Momenta String Quartet, with whom he will be touring this winter (he will miss our February performances, but will be back with us later this spring)... Pianist Melody Fader returns from San Francisco for a busy winter in New York, where in addition to our upcoming performances she will appear at the Joyce Theatre with Buglisi Dance Theatre...

Yes, the economy, the economy, and always the economy - and here we are asking for your money! Why? Ticket sales still cover only about 20% of the costs of each performance. Since long before the current financial woes we have aimed to keep our costs as low as possible. But some costs are unavoidable: 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 just bare necessities to produce our no-frills performances. Instead of cutting back, we try to perform more to keep our art alive and you, our audience, happy. Not an easy task, and we can only do it with your help! Please take a moment to go to our website and find out how you can support our work...