Noctuelle

Commissioned and Performed by Carolina Ballet for their Choreographers Spotlight Series at the North Carolina Museum of Art, August 25, 2023.

‘Noctuelle’ in Review:

The essay's similarities of themes in the struggle from life to death were depicted throughout the 10-minute dance until the last movement when all the performers collapsed to the ground, but one. The entirety of the piece was utterly captivating and elicited feelings of sadness, hope, preservation, and peace. I am eager to continue following Mangulabnan's work and hope that Carolina Ballet brings her back to Raleigh's stages very soon.

— Alana Bleimman, Breaking the Border: Carolina Ballet Delivers Contemporary and Electrifying New Works, CVNC

Excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s ‘The Death of the Moth’:

The same energy which inspired the rooks . . . sent the moth fluttering from side to side of his square of the window-pane. . . . Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.

Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something marvellous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life.

Choreography: Tiffany Mangulabnan
Music: ‘Miroirs: M. 43: I. Noctuelle’, ‘Prelude in A Minor, M. 65’, ‘Miroirs: M. 43: II. Oiseaux Tristes’ by Maurice Ravel, performed by Bertrand Chamayou
Dancers: Jayson Pescasio, Lauren Wolfram, Emily Fretz, Joseph Gerdhardt, Robert Champ, Laurel Dorn
Videography: David Fernandes