Rambert Spring Tour 2005 - News and Feedback Forum


The Rambert Spring Tour 2005 continues it's way around the country and here are the details of the remaining performances:

The works on show this time:

Constant Speed
"Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible player"
Albert Einstein

The fizz and sparkle of molecules ricocheting in space is the inspiration for Artistic Director Mark Baldwin’s new work Constant Speed, performed to the luxuriant music of Franz Lehar.

Commissioned by the Institute of Physics and supported by an Arts and Business New Partners Investment.

Irony of Fate
This is a sublime duet for dancer and violinist by Rambert's Associate Choreographer Rafael Bonachela. Virtuosity and passion come together, as two artists embark on a journey that takes them to the brink of exhaustion.

Linear Remains
Created by Rambert's Associate Choreographer, Rafael Bonachela, this is a fine example of his free-flowing approach to movement that fizzes with kinetic energy.

Songs of a Wayfarer
Created by Kim Brandstrup, this evocative work for seven dancers explores the complex emotions associated with unrequited love and is danced to Mahler's achingly beautiful song-cycle of the same title.

Swamp
Michael Clark's Swamp was first performed in 1986 and imaginatively employs classical dance movements in a thoroughly contemporary way.

A Tragedy of Fashion
In 1926 Rambert's Founding Choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, created A Tragedy of Fashion. This new version by Ian Spink makes reference to the original plot of fashion, art and suicide but also highlights Ashton's creative influences in the 1920s.

Dark Elegies
Created in 1937 by Antony Tudor this is a masterwork from the Rambert repertoire. Performed to a Mahler song cycle, this emotionally charged ballet is a timeless exploration of grief and mourning.

Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan
Choreographed for Rambert in 1976, this beautiful solo for a female dancer has been revived to mark the centenary year of its creator, Sir Frederick Ashton.

Judgment of Paris
Revival première of Antony Tudor's Judgment of Paris a black comedy in which the famous Greek myth of three goddesses competing for the golden apple that Paris will award to the most beautiful is turned on its head.

Momenta
Momenta was created by Mikaela Polley for the Rambert Workshop Season in January 2005 and is performed to a score of the same title by Patrick Nunn.


Spring Tour March-May 2005

Rambert announces details of its forthcoming spring tour. The programme will include Mark Baldwin’s first choreographic work for the Company since he was appointed as Artistic Director in December 2002 entitled Constant Speed and two revivals of Antony Tudor works Dark Elegies which formed part of the highly successful programme at the 2004 Edinburgh International Festival and Judgement of Paris.


Clwyd Theatr Cymru
Mold
Flintshire
CH7 1YA

Box Office: 0845 330 3565
Book Online

Wednesday 9 March – Saturday 12 March, 7.30pm
Matinee: Saturday 12 March, 2pm

Irony of Fate, Bonachela
Songs of a Wayfarer, Brandstrup
A Tragedy of Fashion, Spink
Swamp, Clark


Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield

Tudor Square
Sheffield
S1 2LA

Ticket Office: 0114 249 6000

Wednesday 16 - Saturday 19 March, 7.45pm

Irony of Fate, Bonachela
Songs of a Wayfarer, Brandstrup
A Tragedy of Fashion, Spink
Swamp, Clark
Sponsored by The Sheffield Telegraph.


Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk

Snape
Suffolk
IP17 1SP

Box Office: 01728 687110

Friday 15 & Saturday 16 April, 7.30pm

Irony of Fate, Bonachela

Dark Elegies, Tudor

Five Brahms Waltzes, Ashton

Swamp, Clark.


New Theatre, Oxford

George Street
Oxford
OX1 2AG

Box Office: 08706 063 500

Wednesday 27th - Saturday 30th April

Judgement of Paris, Tudor UK Revival Première
Dark Elegies, Tudor
Swamp, Clark
Momenta, Polley.


Sadler's Wells, London

Roseberry Avenue
Islington
London
EC1R 4TN

Box Office: 08707 377 737
Book Online

Tuesday 24 - Saturday 28 May, 7.30pm

Judgement of Paris, Tudor
Dark Elegies, Tudor
Constant Speed, Baldwin [WORLD PREMIÈRE]
Momenta, Polley.

Matinee: Saturday 28 May, 2.30pm

Dark Elegies, Tudor
Constant Speed, Baldwin
Momenta, Polley.

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Don't delay - have your say.

<small>[ 07 March 2005, 07:39 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Will all those in attendance experiencing the dreaded ‘bad hair day’ receive free admission? :p

Sounds like a fab idea:


"Constant Speed" © Anthony Crickmay

Press Release

RAMBERT GOES UNDERGROUND!

Monday 17th January: Visit London has commissioned Rambert Dance Company to bring dance to the masses with the world’s first dance performance on the London Underground. In celebration of London’s scintillating dance, opera and ballet offering for 2005, twelve dancers from Rambert will perform extracts from, Constant Speed, Artistic Director Mark Baldwin’s latest production which premières at Sadler’s Wells on 24 May 2005.

The London Underground ‘event’ commences at Canary Wharf Tube Station at 11:50am, continuing along the platform before boarding carriages on the Jubilee line and eventually climaxing in Waterloo station. The twelve dancers will be in costume and be accompanied by music by Franz Lehar.

“This unique event highlights the selection of internationally acclaimed productions that are scheduled to take place across London in the forthcoming year, explains, David Campbell, Visit London’s CEO. “The productions coming to the capital in 2005 are amongst the best in our history and rival any city in the world.”

Commenting on the performance London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone said: “Today’s performance on London Underground by Rambert Dance Company is typical of the exciting approach London takes in bringing the arts to new generations of audiences”.

Rambert Dance Company is the oldest dance company in Britain, having been established in 1926. It is also Britain’s flagship contemporary dance company, employing a larger group of artists than any other contemporary dance company in the UK.

Mark Baldwin, Artistic Director of Rambert said: “2005 promises to be a stimulating year for dance and the arts in London. Rambert is delighted to be involved with the Visit London initiative and hopes that this exciting event will reach out to new audiences both in the UK and Europe, and encourage people to make the most of London’s cultural riches."





Note

Visit London's role is to promote London as the world’s most exciting city, targeting domestic and overseas leisure and business visitors as well as Londoners. Visit London is funded by, and works in partnership with, the Mayor of London’s London Development Agency and the commercial industry.

<small>[ 12 January 2005, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

more

<small>[ 18 January 2005, 03:25 AM: Message edited by: kurinuku ]</small>

Music and movement
By Kevin Berry for The Stage


Mark Baldwin’s arrival as Rambert artistic director by way of Fiji, New Zealand and a fine arts degree has given him a deeper understanding of the importance of music and visuals in the make-up of modern dance. And now, he tells Kevin Berry, he’s tackling Einstein

Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, or e=mc2, sounds really quite simple when it is explained by Mark Baldwin. In case you were wondering, this is the same Mark Baldwin who is the artistic director of the Rambert Dance Company.

click for more

I attended the first night at Truro on 16th Feb. and thought that the musical and dance performances were of the highest possible order. However having become attuned to the London Musici with the superb baritone singing in the Mahler, the solo violin in 'Irony of Fate'and the music of Elena Kats-Chernin for'A Tragedy of Fashion'the audience was suddenly confronted by the overpowering recorded soundtrack accompanying 'Swamp'. In many years of attending contemporary dance performances I have never before been unable to concentrate on the dance performance because of a wall of overwhelming sound.

London Musici and their soloists were superb. Recorded soundtracks always sit uncomfortably with live music performance and this programme certainly highlights that dilemma.

I caught Rambert in Brighton on Wednesday, February 23rd, and the show was, in the usual Rambert fashion, pretty inspirational. I hope to write a full review when some urgent matters are out of the way.

Posted by annie wells posted 11 March 2005 07:35 AM
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Rambert Dance Company, Spring Tour 2005
Theatre Royal Brighton
Wednesday February 23rd
Irony of Fate/Songs of a Wayfarer/ Tragedy of Fashion/ Swamp

Those who braved the wintry conditions to catch Rambert Dance Company on their annual visit to Brighton were duly rewarded. No stops barred; a soul-warming delivery of another eclectic selection of superlative Rambert originals with live music from London Musici reminded of the versatility and brilliance that has long made this company mighty.

Dancer Amy Hollingsworth and violinist Ruth Palmer set the standard with a transfixing performance of Irony of Fate , the unusual duet Rambert’s Associate Choreographer, Raphael Bonachela made on them in 2004. Fulfilling intention and paradox, the work exploits and exhibits that which initially inspired the increasingly feted Bonachela - the two artist’s exceptional command of their respective instruments.

They looked similar up on stage in Robert Cary-William’s brown, leafy costumes, but were more implicitly bound by less tangible factors. Whether faced with Vytautas Barkauskas’ arching bows and taut pizzicatos or Bonachela’s cleaving stretches and perplexing dislocations, musician and dancer committed to her part with grit and determination. There was also a profound sense of complicity and reciprocity in their simultaneous movement through the music and choreography. By dramatic drop of the curtain, they’d combined their extraordinary abilities to transport themselves and by proxy those who watched to the outer limits of possibility.

As well as title and accompaniment, Mahler’s romantic song cycle, Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen provided Kim Brandstrup with theme and tone for his weighty 2004 composition, Songs of a Wayfarer . Embodying the jilted baritone’s (Adrian Powter) lovelorn lament with a typical measure of Rambert expressivity, the seven dancers imbued Brandstrup’s classically-styled illustration of his battle with rejection and sorrow with universal significance. While many would have empathised with the jilted Thomasin Gülgeç when as odd-man he was forced to move out of kilter with the group; others would have found sympathy with the pain and despair duets with ex-lover Ana Luján Sanchez evidently brought him. Struggling to rediscover their former flow he found her awkward and reluctant, only to witness her lift light and harmonious into the arms of another.

Though not all would have captured the full significance of Ian Spink, Antony McDonald and Juliette Blondelle’s 2005 reworking of Frederick Ashton’s sharp-edged comedy Tragedy of Fashion ; the bright colours and wicked humour lifted the atmosphere like the arrival of a dessert trolley. In its re-telling of society couturier Monsieur Duchic’s heady rise and bloody fall, the adaptation pays fitting tribute to the 1926 ballet that played a large part in the launch of both Ashton and the company’s careers. For the sake of Ashton and Rambert Dance fans and indeed for the posterity of general ballet history, it was wise that many in-jokes; allusions to influential figures (e.g. Rambert, Nijinska and Massine); and original step patterns (e.g. the ‘Fred Step’) had been retained. However there was still much for a less informed spectator to enjoy in the contemporary version’s content, design and performance. If references to Ashton’s South American heritage and ambiguous sexuality were picked up or not, the charismatic execution of sequences like the tango and the revamping of Duchic’s progressively ridiculous costumes were all highly entertaining.

Like a double shot of caffeine, Rambert’s 2004 revival of Michael Clark’s 1986 Swamp took the long evening to a climatic end. Influenced by his training with the Royal Ballet and Rambert in the two techniques, he breaks systematic Cecchetti-style enchainements into random Cunningham fractals in a unique and inspired manner. As is usual with Clark, furious sound, (Bruce Gilbert’s Feeling Called Love, Do You Me?) and sharp light (by Charles Atlas) lifted the energy to a further extreme. At the point where it didn’t seem it could get any better, the dancers used the extra passion the work obviously stirs in them to dig a last bit harder and launch a last bit higher into its pliés and grands jetés. Wow!

Annie Wells

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Annie Wells

<small>[ 11 March 2005, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Annie:
Thank you for your wonderful review. I have moved it to this topic where I believe it is most relevant, and lots of people will take the opportunity to read it.

Hi to all Rambert fans. Did anyone see and care to comment about the performances at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Wednesday 9 March through Saturday 12 March?
Or the performances at Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield, Wednesday 16 to Saturday 19 March?

Would love to hear your thoughts.