Rambert's Artistic Director tells all

When Rambert Dance Company returns to Norwich for its annual autumnal visit, it comes not just with a fantastic programme to delight audiences but also a wish to make the city feel even more a part of the Rambert family. As its artistic director Mark Baldwin tells Judy Foster, there is a strong ethos within the company to not only make its performances pieces “extremely accessible” to all types of audience, but also to involve as many  people as possible in enjoying the transformative power of dance.

The three pieces Rambert has picked to present as a mixed programme on October 19 & 20 at Norwich Theatre Royal combine the iconic with the brand new.

Christopher Bruce’s masterpiece Ghost Dances tops the bill. One of the most celebrated contemporary dance pieces of its generation and a key area of study for dance students, it was choreographed by him for Rambert in the early 1980s and is an evocative tribute to the victims of political oppression in South America.

Mark enthuses about the “amazing Peruvian music which is played live”. “It is 14-years-old but it speaks to today’s audience as much as it did all that time ago. It was commissioned by Free Chile about all the people that were going missing then and that message is still relevant today. That‘s why it’s exciting that we have brought it back.

“Everyone in the piece is dead because it is based on the Mexican Day of the Dead. The ghosts are dressed in masks and full make-up and as you look at the costumes for the villagers, half are disintegrated and the other half intact – and the ghosts are taking them to the other side. So it’s little vignettes of those villagers’ lives.”

Mark said that as so much of Rambert’s work is usually “very, very contemporary”, it has been nice to bring back a classic.  “It has the folk music and the singing which came to England then. A Chilean refugee will be singing on tour with us, so it is a genuine voice of this kind of music. It is part of our 90-year history and although we do like uber contemporary work and we are always looking for new movement, it is all about the dancing.”

Now aged 71, Christopher Bruce continues to hold a unique position in British dance.  As a dancer and then a choreographer with Rambert from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, he was encouraged by the company’s founder Dame Marie Rambert.  For this most recent reworking of one of his most famous pieces, he personally returned to the studio to put the dancers through their paces.

Mark explained that he had been one of the first generation of choreographers who combined more modern dance techniques with classical ballet to come up with his own language which “opened up the whole chocolate box of how dancers move these days and how they are engaged in a work”.  

Also on the programme in Norwich will be The days run away like wild horses, a new creation by theatrical choreographer Aletta Collins, one of the UK’s most in-demand choreographers. It takes its title from a poem by Charles Bukowski and is a witty and vivid laugh-out-loud depiction of the everyday moments that make up a life, set to the pulsating tones of Arturo Márquez’s musical piece Danzones.

Mark said: “It’s from a film that she saw in the 80s with all these high repetitions going on in a room. There is one main woman in it and most of the cast end up dressed like her and it is really fun and punchy. They have all got characters – we have a plumber, a schoolgirl, lovers, and it really takes you on this journey and creates a beautiful world for you.”