After 'Curious Conscience' and 'A Steel Garden':

"It was fantastic, such a sense of controlled movement, such grace, and 'A Steel Garden' especially was very sensual." - Claudia, Sussex

"It was good enough, the 1st work was more sombre, but I liked the chimes in the 2nd piece, this one was ok." - Oliver, Ireland

After end of performance:

"The first one wasn't good for me becasue I turned up late, however the others were absolutely phenomenal. Bruce's is very rounded, very different, they made music and danced at the same time, the chimes did it for me. It was like being in a dream, I became mesmerised." Rachel, London

"The first one was good but more monotonous, I really liked the second one, it varied compared with the others, and I like Clark anyway. It was very technical and a nice, together piece, most works today are too disjointed." Carl, Cambridge

Oh no, not tubular bells
Christopher Bruce was first up of the Rambert old boys, but it was Michael Clark who stole the show, says Jann Parry for The Observer

Rambert Dance Company's proudest boast has always been the quantity, as well as quality, of choreographers it has nurtured. All three dance-makers represented in its autumn season programme are former members of the company: Rafael Bonachela, rapidly establishing his reputation as the latest must-have choreographer; Christopher Bruce, its ex-director, trying to rediscover his creative energy in a comeback commission....

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All tangled up
A hit-and-miss programme does not do justice to the Rambert dancers’ talents, says David Dougill for The Sunday Times

Rambert Dance Company’s latest London season at Sadler’s Wells included the world premiere of A Steel Garden, Christopher Bruce’s first work for the troupe since his retirement as artistic director three years ago.

The title is explained as soon as the curtain rises on the decor — by Marian Bruce, the choreographer’s wife and regular designer — of suspended gongs and banks of tubular bells. This is a hanging garden with a sense, as the dance shapes out, of a mystical space. One pair of dancers walk slowly away from us, another towards us.

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It's all relative... the E>mc2 step
Art gravitates towards science as Rambert puts Einstein's theories into practice on stage, says Jackie McGlone for Scotland on Sunday

UPSTAIRS at the Rambert Dance Company's London home in leafy Chiswick, youthful dancers are rehearsing a new ballet, energetically spinning and leaping. Downstairs in a shabby conference room, artistic director Mark Baldwin is lecturing me on Einsteinian physics. If only my schoolteachers had looked and sounded like the stylish, laid-back Baldwin, who speaks so eloquently and knowledgeably about the wit and beauty of the theory of relativity while explaining the photoelectric effect and the mathematics of Brownian motion.

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As always I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. I thought that Curious Conscience was Rafael Bonachela's best yet. Having seen it in rehearsal I was keen to see the finished product and it did not disappoint. Although I do sometimes find Britton's music a little inaccessible I seem to be in the minority in finding the movement and the music matching beautifully. The set was a little distracting at times but I certainly thought the piece as a whole was excellent. The new Bruce work, Steel Garden, was for me a bit of a Curate's Egg. There were some lovely phrases but somehow they never developed as I hoped they might. I wanted to see more of the duet between Lucila Alves and David Mack. Carried in on his shoulder like an oriental princess, I wanted to see this 'relationship' develop but it just seemed to fade away. My appetite was certainly whetted by this piece but never quite satisfied. Swamp is always a favourite and lived up to expectations as usual. I do want to make mention of the news on the flier inserted into the programme, that Simon Cooper has been awarded the inaugural Jane Attenborough Dance in Education fellowship. This is great news for Simon and the Company. Congratulations.

Thanks a bunch for your comments Kritchie - it's always good to hear from you.

I'm used to being impressed by Rambert. They have the most amazing, stretchy, bendy, strong and athletic, graceful, dramatic, cheeky, sexy dancers you have ever seen. They also have killer lighting & design people. And with fresh choreography like this to play with, they can die happy. It's soooo Rambert, so them. It shows off all their incredible extension, agility and versatility. It's buggery complex - you can't imagine this dance notated; it would be impossible to codify. The dancers look self satisfyingly sexy; they know how good they are, how good they look and how well they are shown off by the stark and clever lighting, using dramatic shadow and glare in a coolly rock and roll manner. They LOVE it, you can tell.

Think of a dance version of the Hitler Youth. At the start of the piece, the dancers emerge from the shadows, all restless, rippling limbs in raggedy dark uniform, like a master race of overly bendable, beautiful people. The Third Reich overtones to the design scheme can't have been accidental - the mood of the piece is brooding and the music, Benjamin Britten. And quite probably Rambert is breeding a new master race of dancer. The company members have to reproduce themselves and ever evolve to meet the challenges that a Bonachela or, equally,a Wayne Magregor will throw at them with their frantic, body stretching and contorting, 21st century, postmodern choreography that asks so much of a dancer. So yes, I wouldn't be surprised if Mark Baldwin is secretly genetically modifying and purifying the next generation in the studios of Chiswick.

It was a real pleasure to see Rambert Dance Company again at Sadler’s Wells last week.
The dancers were in superb form. The programme opened with Rafael Bonchela’s ‘Curious Conscience’, a work for 18 dancers set to Benjamin Britten’s ‘Serenade for Tenor, Horn & Strings. Exploring themes of night, sleep and dreams the piece seemed rather dark and a bit confusing. The dark mood was cleverly enhanced by the dark background settings only sometimes interrupted by the use of a pattern of small spotlights from behind. I came away from it feeling that maybe a bit less would have been more. Maybe it is one of those pieces one has to view a couple of times to come to a proper appreciation.

Ex-artistic director Christopher Bruce’s ‘A Steel Garden’ has a distinctive Eastern feel to it. The stage settings involve several very large wind chimes that the 8 dancers play with short wooden sticks while moving through and past them. This gives way to two strong duets in the middle section of the piece which leads into a vivid and lively group section which strongly reminded me of a suddenly breaking thunderstorm. In the end we come back to ‘chimey ‘tranquility with movements mirroring the opening sequence.

For me the highlight of the evening was Michael Clark’s ‘Swamp’. Originally created for the company in 1986 and only recently reworked for its revival the piece combines elements of both classical ballet and Cunnigham technique. There are a lot of balances for individual dancers and clever counter balance movements in the duets. It is just amazing how the stage seems to be filled with a cast of just 8 dancers. Watching this fresh and exiting work had me leave the theatre on a high.

I agree with the comments about Swamp-wonderful piece, I find more in it each time. Very well crafted.

Does anyone know if and where the music for 'Swamp' can be bought?

It's called "Dawn of the New Age", by David C. Heath, and is on the CD African Sunrise/Manhattan Rave. Amazon has it.

I think that's the music to 'A Steel Garden'. the music to 'Swamp' is by Bruce Gilbert called 'Do you me? I did', I just can't seem to find it anywhere. the closest thing I can find is on Amazon where there's a track on one of his CDs called 'work for Do you me? i did', but i don't know if that's the same thing.

The first section of Swamp is by the band The Wire, on the album Pink Flag (song called Feeling Called Love). The second and third sections are, as far as we know, not on general release in the form used for Swamp, we had to transfer it from the original production master tapes.

Dawn of a New Age is indeed the music for Steel Garden, however it has been reworked for this production, so the recording will sound a bit different.

Mark Thackeray
Rambert Sound Technician

Hi Mark, nice to see you here and thanks for the information.

Yes thanks for the info Mark, I shall regrettably cease my search!