This is Rambert
Festival Theatre, 2/7/26
Rambert Artistic Director: Benoit Swan Pouffer
In Crimson (2026) : choreography Bobbi Jene Smith & Or Schreiber
Hop(e)storm (2025): choreography (LA)HORDE (Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer, Arthur Harel) and Rambert dancers
Gallery of Consequence (2025): choreography Emma Evelyn
‘We’re 100 and we’re just getting started.’
First Ballet Rambert, then Rambert Dance Company, and now simply Rambert: the changing names of the company over the years reflect its evolution from a classical ballet company to a company embracing contemporary dance. Always risk-taking, always on the move, and constantly reinventing itself in touring, commissioning new choreography, and exploring new ways of creating dance. This triple bill celebrates a hundred years since the company was formed by Dame Marie Rambert. But not content merely to showcase past triumphs, Artistic Director Benoit Swan Pouffer has used the centenary to celebrate fresh collaborations with choreographers new to the UK. ‘In Crimson’ premiered less than a month ago, and ‘Hop(e)storm and ‘Gallery of Consequence’ premiered in 2025.
‘In Crimson’ begins with a shallow stage backed with a crimson curtain, upright piano to the right. A pianist enters and begins Bach’s Partita no 2. First one, then two, then groups of dancers travel across and around the confined area in loosely linked episodes: exploring the space, the music, and their relationships with each other. Wearing ordinary clothes, these extraordinary dancers move separately, together, in antagonism, mirroring and reversing roles, with elements of flamenco, jazz, and even a few classical movements thrown in for good measure. Arms, bodies, legs, clothing, and even hair become part of the dance which explores, echoes, and anticipates the music. Two male dancers become gorillas, posturing and aggressive, only to slink off when observed by a female dancer. She then dances alone to Barbara’s ‘La Solitude’ sung beautifully by another dancer: singer, pianist, and dancer together creating a tale of love and despair. Two male dancers arrive, sitting and observing. She leaves, and the focus shifts to them. They create their own rhythms with chairs and limbs, angular shapes formed by clothing and bodies, turning into an argument. Drums are heard. Dance or fight? A bit of both. More dancers appear, with rhythms supplied by mouth music, beats without words, then ‘Mi par d’udir ancora’ by Georges Bizet crackling in an atmospheric recording by Enrico Caruso, all interspersed with sensitive original music by Yonatan Daskal. The skilful combination of live piano solo, then piano and singer, giving way to recorded tracks is a very elegant way of providing a heady mix of live and recorded music. Sometimes the dancers stand still and let the music dance.
Hop(e)storm (2025): A dozen dancers pace the now bare, deep stage, with sparse, industrial sounds echoing. Gradually they form two groups, one running and hurling themselves at the other, circling and seeking escape but being pushed, carried, and dragged back. Closer and closer they come, the heartbeat rhythm pulsing, until the opening riff of Jailhouse Rock clues us in to what is happening. With two lines facing each other, the music and dance become a demented, joyously and aggressively techno Lindy Hop. Subdued lighting, colours changing, pounding rhythm, couples moving separately yet joined at the beat. The group forms one organism, separate movements part of the whole, always shifting and changing.
‘Gallery of Consequence’ was premiered a year ago in the Festival Theatre. At an airport stress levels soar. Cut off from reality, we enter a limbo where everything falls away apart from the compulsion to move, sit, slump, wait, check the departures board compulsively, and watch others doing the same. Or maybe that’s just me.
The piece begins with airport employees chatting and luggage-toting dancers appearing and disappearing from all directions under a huge departures screen, in a snapshot of the everyday bustle of a busy travel hub. At first all is well, but then the story and the chaos unfolds. Vignettes pass quickly, sometimes simultaneously, as solos, pas de deux, and various groupings tell of love, loss, panic, and existential angst. The departures screen scrolls frenetically: Cancelled, Last Call, Departed, Alone, Missed, throwing up silhouettes of despair and mirroring the chaos below. The soundscape, designed by Raven Bush, features several contemporary sources underpinning the movements and supporting the unfolding stories. The dancers, who work democratically with no soloists identified, are cheered enthusiastically by the enraptured audience. We have followed them breathlessly through three very different pieces. Utterly enthralling.
As well as giving us plenty of information about tonight’s pieces and the 18 dancers, plus creatives, the outstanding programme gives a history of the 100 years since Rambert was founded, documenting twists and turns along the way. It also sets out Rambert’s bold plans, acknowledging the past century with gratitude but with eyes firmly fixed on the future.
photo credit: Tim Bret-Day
