Dance

‘What I’m doing is for today’s audiences, for people who would never before have heard of the book or the ballet. It’s been an interesting journey for me, and I now think Andrée Howard [1910-1968] is the missing link in the British choreographic jigsaw puzzle. We don’t have much of her work, but you can see how much of an influence she was on both Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor.’ Feature continues

During Rambert’s performances at Sadler’s Wells, starting on Tuesday, Londoners will be getting a double first in ‘Stand and Stare’. This is not only choreographer Darshan Singh Bhuller’s first dance for Rambert, it is also his first work since he stepped down as director of the Leeds-based Phoenix Dance Theatre.
Commissioned by the Lowry Centre in Salford, it celebrates the painter LS Lowry. Bhuller and his designer Craig Givens have taken many hints from Lowry’s paintings. In the process they’ve come up with a never-never land chilled by the cold northern sea.

The energetic, wilfully propulsive movement is driven by Bartók’s ‘Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion’ in a commanding performance by London Musici, Rambert’s TO Live Award-winning pit band. ‘Stand and Stare’ is an impressive-looking half-hour piece for 19 dancers. It is intriguingly ambiguous. The lengthy, emotionally taut duet at its centre is for Angela Towler and Thomasin Gülgeç. Behind them, silhouetted against a Lowry seascape, several couples stretch and slide in slow motion. Trying to connect, or trying to escape? It all depends on whether your glass is half empty or half full.

Rambert Dance Company is at Sadler’s Well’s, EC1, from Tuesday to November 18, including a schools’ matinee on Thursday and a matinee on Saturday.