It may be Britain’s oldest dance company, but it has never acted like it. With an ethos to push boundaries and artistically innovate from the very beginning, responding maturely to societal and artistic change, and having faith in the unique abilities of each of their dancers, Rambert (formerly Rambert Dance Company) has continually remained on the frontier of artistic expression within dance since its founding almost a century ago.
Opened by Polish dancer Marie Rambert, who danced in the then-controversial Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring, Rambert founded her institution in 1926 after becoming a dance tutor, utilising her keen eye for talent and her numerous artistic contacts to launch the careers of many, and to change the face of ballet and dance at large in the capital.
At a time where British dancers adopted exoticized Russian monikers, Rambert’s students were instead instructed to be themselves, to use their ‘plain’ English names to show authenticity in dance, drawing out their personalities, vulnerabilities, and self-confidence to great effect.
Their first home at Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill Gate, a minute 18-ft squared space barely large enough to twirl a cane in, proved useful, for their intimate repertory well suited performing in canteens, entertaining munitions factory workers as well as ‘sherry ballet’ matinees for civilians.
By the time the 60s came, Rambert embraced new contemporary influences to keep up with growing innovations in America, moving in a more experimental yet still tentative direction, continually drawing in classical and contemporary dancers to combine new with old, hybridising into a new direction.
To this day they are still embracing the daring and radical, straddling classical and contemporary, taking influence from either to create new exhilarating forms, offering productions, styles, and talents that can only be found at Rambert.
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