Rambert Dance Company turned 87 years old on 15 June 2013 as Britain’s oldest dance company. There has been much discussion amongst balletomanes recently about the ethnicity of dancers in British ballet and dance companies and the lack of British dancers, so it is ironic that Rambert’s founder, Marie Rambert, was Polish and originally studied Eurythmics under Emile Jacques-Dalcroze.
Established in 1926, Rambert – as it is now to be known following recent rebranding of the Richard Alston named Rambert Dance Company – is the flagship modern dance company of Britain, employing more dancers and artists than any other dance company in the UK. Rambert appeals widely to audiences all over the world, often dancing the works of iconic choreographers both past and present, such as Wayne McGregor, Siobhan Davies and American modern dance pioneer Merce Cunningham. This gives a certain stature to Rambert’s work as it continues to provide a vast repertoire of works around the world.
Rambert’s first choreographic work in 1926 is said to mark the birth of British ballet under the title A Tragedy of Fashion by Frederick Ashton, who was then one of Rambert’s students. In 1935 Rambert was renamed Ballet Rambert (from the Ballet Club as it was originally known), and this name remained until 1987. Rambert became a touring ballet company for up to 35 weeks a year during the Second World War and frequently performed at Sadler’s Wells. Ballet Rambert then went on to perform several classic including Giselle, Coppelia and the first major British productions of La Sylphide and Don Quixote, rather than creating new works.
In 1952 Rambert travelled to America to see the new developments in dance and study with some of the major choreographers of the time, such as Martha Graham. Following this the company returned to its original ethos and transformed from a medium-scale classical touring company, to smaller ensemble, to contemporary dance company in later years.
One of the world’s most prestigious ballet competitions, the Prix Benois de la Danse is awarded at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia every year in order to give credit to the best of dance talents in the world for their achievements over the past year, such as best choreographer, as well as the best male and female dancer.
It has been announced that 2014, as the 30th anniversary of Jane Torvil and Christopher Dean’s Olympic Bolero performance, will mark the last series of Dancing on Ice. Torvil and Dean, the series’ mentors, felt it made sense to end the show, as a mark of the anniversary of their groundbreaking dance at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics.
Queensland Ballet has announced an exclusive season coming up for dance fans in Australia by obtaining two very current stars, each in their own respects, for new work in the coming year for the company. Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet will be staged and will star Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta for the season which will run from 27 June to 5 July 2014. This is fantastic for the company and a huge achievement for Queensland Ballet’s artistic director, Li Cunxin.
Ballet has taken a new leap into technology, with students from 18 international schools having performed together virtually at a conference in Toronto. The students from Toronto were linked through dance and livestream with dancers in Amsterdam as part of a curriculum Canada’s National Ballet School has worked into the Assemblée Internationale, a week-long conference in Toronto with student dancers from ballet schools around the world. As a collaborative conference, it will bring students together to form bonds and learn about working together just as they are thinking about where they will be dancing professionally in a few years, with technology central to what they do.
It has been announced that English National Ballet will take part in three Gala performances in the grounds of Buckingham Palace as part of the Coronation Festival in July this year, performing Tempus, a specially commissioned piece paying tribute to Her Majesty The Queen to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her Coronation.
Alina Cojocaru, back in 2008, launched the fundraising for the Bucharest Hospice Appeal through her first gala for Hospice of Hope, a Romanian charity operating to prevent the abandonment of sick children. This donation of so much of her time and effort is in an entirely different vein from her Royal Ballet status.
Beginning as a soloist under Dame Ninette de Valois in the original Sadler’s Wells Ballet, going on to become a star dancer at the London Palladium, acting opposite Errol Flynn in films and dancing on television, it seems Gillian Lynne has done the lot!
ZooNation, the hip hop dance company founded by Kate Prince in 2002, will perform the world premiere of new production Groove on Down the Road at the Southbank Centre in London this summer. The new show is written and directed by Prince, and has been commissioned by the Southbank Centre, described as a “unique twist” on The Wizard of Oz.