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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Morwenna Ferrier. Photography: Rick Guest. Styling: Helen Seamons and Melanie Wilkinson

Briefs encounter: Rambert at 90

A woman dancer leans back with her arms held by a male dancer, who has his leg raised and pointed at her
DO NOT USE BEFORE OCT 01 2016. Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancers are Carolyn Bolton and Stephen Quilden Photograph: Rick Guest for the Guardian

Kym Sojourna stands in front of the camera, waiting for instruction. Tall and long-legged, she is wearing a tight pink leotard, with her hair scraped back from her face and a flick of gold liner framing her eyes. “Try this,” says rehearsal director Angela Towler, circling the air with her finger. Sojourna nods and tips forward, cantilever-like, on one leg. Three dancers surround her in a semicircle. Her fingers touch the floor and she stops, bent like an upended swan. The dancers whisper approvingly, “Yes, Kym” and she holds her pose. That’s the money shot.

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Kym Sojourna
Kym wears catsuit, £32, by American Apparel. Top: Carolyn wears sports bra, £30, and shorts, £34, by American Apparel. Stephen wears tank, £30, and shorts, £65, by Falke

It’s a warm day and eight dancers are spinning, leaping and falling in this season’s block-colour athleisure (or underwear: the boundaries are blurred). There is the constant sound of limbs cracking on the floor. Some move with balletic grace; others make more staccato, contemporary movements. Disparate in terms of technique and background, and with 20 years between them – Towler is 42, Sojourna 23 – they are all part of the Rambert dance company, which this year turns 90.

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Stephen Quilden
Stephen wears shorts, £10, by H&M

A contemporary outfit with a ballet core, Rambert tours almost year round, with a big outreach programme and a school that has taught famous performers from Audrey Hepburn to Vanessa Redgrave, as well as choreographers such as Frederick Ashton and Christopher Bruce. Its peer, English National Ballet (ENB), is five years its junior, though any rivalry between the two companies is manufactured, Rambert’s artistic director Mark Baldwin tells me. “I am good friends with Tamara [Rojo, ENB’s artistic director].” But when I ask whether Rojo’s introduction of more contemporary work treads on Rambert toes, he is diplomatic. “Each to their own, of course, although I will say you need 90 years’ experience to do what we do. Still, it’s good – the more, the merrier.”

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Carolyn Bolton
Carolyn wears leotard, £28, by American Apparel

The first thing you notice at a Rambert performance is the sheer range of dancers: black, white, short, tall, muscular, lean; all shapes, all sizes. It figures: what works in samba, body-wise, might not work in ballet, and Rambert’s dancers are chosen for their different strengths. I sit in on a morning rehearsal in their giant modernist studio on London’s South Bank. They are focusing on barre work and it’s clear that, even at this stage in their careers, some find ballet easier than others. The aim is to harness this diversity – of technique, but also, importantly, of race. “We are 41% diverse,” Baldwin explains, “but that figure often goes unnoticed.” He hopes to better the ratio to 50% by the time he leaves.

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Adam Park
Adam wears shorts, £14, by Asos

Rambert dancers such as Dane Hurst are not yet stars such as Carlos Acosta or Misty Copeland, but Baldwin predicts he will be. Hurst grew up in South Africa under apartheid. His grandmother made costumes for the local dance school, and he learned ballet from a teacher who ignored segregation to teach in Gelvandale, a designated “coloured” area. “Ballet was an elitist thing,” Hurst, now 32, tells me. “Kids from my background couldn’t afford to do it properly. It’s only recently that people of different colour, shape and background have been able to pursue this sort of career.” With financial help, he came to Rambert at 18, as an apprentice, and lived “like a student – very happily”. (Rambert is one of the few companies that pays its apprentices.) Baldwin resurrected the 100-year-old Afternoon Of A Faun, scored by Debussy, especially for Hurst, who went on to win male dancer of the year in 2014.

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Edit Domoszlai
Edit wears bodysuit, £28, by American Apparel

Rambert has 22 performers – 20 core, two apprentices – and operates a flat structure in the sense that there are no stars: newcomers can lead, with veterans in the chorus, and then switch back again. Daniel Davidson, 31, is lean, sharp-eyed and one of the company’s oldest performers. He, too, benefited from grants and scholarships, moving from ballet class in his local church to Scottish Ballet and eventually to Rambert. His mother had three jobs, and he worked nights in a bar while dancing in the day. “The industry is hard, especially for men,” he says, “but equality has improved modern dance.”

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Daniel Davidson
Daniel wears tank, £14, and trunks, £42, by American Apparel

Not all the dancers started out in local classes. Liam Francis, 23, grew up doing street dance before joining The X Factor as a backing dancer. He is about to graduate from Rambert apprentice to staff. “I can’t believe it’s happening,” he says. “The X Factor was fun, I learned a lot – but this feels more real, more artistic.” He throws himself into the air and falls, thwack, on to the floor.

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Liam Francis
Liam wears vest, £6, and shorts, £45, by Asos

What do the dancers make of the clothes they are modelling, which are skimpy and slinky? “This is the sort of thing I rehearse in,” Francis says. “I like to be able to move, to feel casual. I sweat a bit, too, so you have to be careful with what colour you wear.” Another dancer in American Apparel looks in the mirror and adjusts her outfit: “I feel like a slutty Simone Biles.”

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Angela Towler
Angela wears unitard, £32, by American Apparel

The Rambert day is nine hours, divided into chunks: 90 minutes of class, a 15-minute break, class, lunch, class, break and class for a final hour, then out by 6pm. The physical toll is inevitable. Towler recently had a hip replacement – “shallow sockets,” she smiles, pointing to her hips. She used to dance in the company, but is now a rehearsal director. “I just never wanted to leave. This place, it’s like a family: everyone looks out for each other. It’s not competitive.”

xclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Kym Sojourna
Kym wears bodysuit, £34, by American Apparel

Sojourna is one of Rambert’s newest members. She attended the school from the age of eight (around five graduates join every season) and seems almost Pollyanna-ish when she talks about dance: “I am never happier than when I’m dancing.” But she also has a life: “I drink, red wine, maybe too much. I live with two drag queens and we sometimes put on performances together.” She eats Haribo by the bag and cooks a decent bolognese.

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Adam Park
Adam wears top, £35, by Falke and shorts, £42, by American Apparel

The Rambert company dates back to 1914, when Polish-born Marie Rambert arrived in London fleeing the war. She began choreographing and teaching just a couple of years later, and in 1926 her dancers started performing as an official company. Its first proper show was a groundbreaking moment – foreign art being performed on English soil - and Rambert became a star in her own right, dancing in the 1948 film The Red Shoes and teaching Hepburn, who lived with her for a period.

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Edit Domoszlai
Edit wears unitard, £32, by American Apparel

Over the years, each new artistic director has nudged things in a different stylistic direction, which has sometimes been divisive. Baldwin, the current incumbent, has a conceptual, radical style, and describes his creative process as “looking into a hole and grabbing whichever thing comes first”. He is drawn to unlikely collaborators: in the 1980s, he worked with fashion designers Katharine Hamnett and John Galliano; more recently there has been Anish Kapoor and Radiohead drummer Philip Selway. These collaborations bring in new audiences and revenue; in just over a decade, Baldwin has raised £19.5m, helping save the company and open the RIBA award-winning HQ it now calls home. Baldwin cites his work with Selway (“a very cool guy”) and the painter Gerhard Richter on a forthcoming anniversary performance, Rambert Event (a restaging of Merce Cunningham’s legendary Events), as one of his proudest moments.

Exclusive shoot of the Ballet Rambert for Guardian Weekend magazine feature celebrating its 90th anniversary. Photograph by Rick Guest, styling by Melanie Wilkinson and Helen Seamons. Dancer is Daniel Davidson
Daniel wears tank, £19, and shorts, £32, by American Apparel

This autumn will be one of Rambert’s busiest seasons yet: there are rehearsals for The Creation which, with 120 performers, is the company’s biggest work to date, with a set by Pablo Bronstein; it is also resurrecting Bruce’s Ghost Dances and Alexander Whitley’s Frames, as well as running a national tour. So there is work to be done. Shoot over and civvies on (tracksuits and vests), the dancers get to it.

• Rambert celebrates its 90th anniversary with a nationwide programme this autumn including The Creation at Sadler’s Wells, London EC1, on 10-12 November. For details, go to rambert.org.uk.

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