New Chamber Ballet: SANCTUM

Saturday, February 4, at 7:30 pm

James and Martha Duffy Performance Space
Mark Morris Dance Center
3 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, NY

Full-length ballet by Miro Magloire to live chamber music by Kaija Saariaho and Karin Rehnqvist. With the Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble.

New Chamber Ballet and the Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble present the revival of Sanctum, a 70-minute ballet choreographed by Miro Magloire to music by Kaija Saariaho and Karin Rehnqvist.

'Sanctum' describes either a sacred place or a privately secluded one; and the ballet Sanctum vividly evokes both, powerfully brought to life by the music of two outstanding composers: Kaija Saariaho and Karin Rehnqvist.

In a rare collaboration, New Chamber Ballet's enthralling dancers and musicians and the stunning singers of the Ekmeles vocal ensemble join forces in a celebration of sounds, bodies, and movement choreographed by Miro Magloire in the company's trademark up-close, in-the-round style.

Sanctum is bookended by vocal music: Saariaho's Changing Lights and From The Grammar Of Dreams, in which the singers also dance with the dancers; and Rehnqvist's Davids Nimm, a bone-chilling shepherdesses' call that closes the performance. The center part is left to violin and piano with Saariaho's Nocturne, Calices, Prelude, Tocar, and Ballade, as well as Rehnqvist's Dans.

Echoing the music's blend of iridescent colors and archaic melodies, the dancing runs the gamut from barefoot floor work to complex pointe steps and gravity-defying partnering, alternating between intimate duets and kaleidoscopic ensembles.