Rambert featuring Rooster Review
Rambert featuring Rooster
New Victoria Theatre, Woking
6-8 February 2014
Review by Christine Charlesworth
On Thursday 6February I went to see ballet Rambert perform at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking. It is a few years since I last saw Rambert and I was particularly looking forward to seeing ‘Rooster’, set to the music of the Rolling Stones, which they have not performed for over 13 years. Woking is the first venue on the latest Rambert tour and this, being the first performance, included a number of members from the company in the audience as eager as we were to see the dancers on stage.
This tour has seven set dance pieces plus ‘Rooster’. As each of the set dances have a different choreographer and only two other pieces are performed with ‘Rooster, the company will perform different selections to vary the tour, always finishing with ‘Rooster’. The other pieces are: ‘Dutiful Ducks’, ‘L’Apres–midi du’un faune’, ‘Sounddance’, ‘Sub’, ‘Subterrain’, ‘The Castaways’ and ‘What Wild Ecstasy’.
First to be performed last night was ‘Subterrain’ choreographed by Ashley Page. The piece starts with two dancers and a hanging section of set which had a large, open trap door. One dancer was above and one below. The music was very slow to start, both dancers climbed below and then the set moved up high above the stage to give an excellent feeling of everything taking place below. The performance began. ‘Subterrain’ was initially inspired by the music of Mark-Anthony Turnage but it also incorporates music by the iconic electronic music artist Aphex Twin. This was a non-narrative piece. Costumes were really beautiful, set colours where excellent, dancing was superb but, at times, I was distracted by too much taking place on stage and a little confused about what was actually happening.
After the interval was ‘The Castaways’ which was choreographed by Barak Marshall, self-taught dancer and choreographer from America, who only joined Rambert in 2013. As Barak prefers to tell stories he combines speech in his choreographed pieces. The score, arranged by Robert Millett, encompasses Middle Eastern music with Rumanian, a lot of Yiddish music and some New York 1930’s jazz. The curtain opened to an almost dark stage with all the dancers, in normal clothes, lying together on the floor. One dancer awoke and called up into a large metal tube, high up at the side of the stage. The other dancers wake and from that moment we were treated to Rambert at its best. ‘The Castaways’ follows the journey of twelve souls trapped in no-man’s land. The warmonger, the three mean girls, the emcee, the dreamer the lustful Latin lovers, the jilted bride, the greedy beggar and the naive young couple – all victims of their own weakness and in a hell of their own making. The dancing was absolutely wonderful: beautifully synchronised movements, effortless shapes, flowing curves, superb co-ordination and the audience loved it, wanting to applaud at every pause. This piece was full of wit and humour, foot tapping music, colourful costumes and an excellent use of balloons (which has to be seen to be appreciated).
During the interval I was able to chat with the music director, Paul Hoskins. Rambert, renowned for its use of live music, is the only UK-based contemporary dance company to tour with its own orchestra. Music during the performances had been excellent but for the final piece, ‘Rooster’, Paul told me he was not needed, as all the music was taken from eight original Rolling Stones tracks. He was, therefore, looking forward to relaxing and enjoying watching the performance.
‘Rooster’ sprang into life with ‘Little Red Rooster’ as the starting point with the male dancers strutting, preening and prancing, to the amusement of everyone, cast and audience included. ‘Rooster’ is a celebration of 1960’s and 70’s and really has to be seen to be fully appreciated. It really was a great finale to the evening. First class Rambert.
Founded in 1926 by Polish-born Marie Rambert, who built the ‘Mercury Theatre’ in Notting Hill, the company has continued to sustain Marie’s vision of dance as art and the importance of collaboration between choreographer, composer and artist. Rambert is now the most distinctive and creative contemporary dance company working in Britain today. In Autumn 2013 Rambert moved into a new home in the heart of London’s South Bank. This is a centre for choreography, new music for dance and has state of the art facilities for emerging or established artists from all over the world. In this building will be housed a substantial archive collection which will be available to schools, students and the public.
The company will be performing next week in Aberdeen, followed by Brighton, Mold, Oxford, Newcastle upon Tyne, Bromley and finally at Sadler’s Wells from 20 May.
For anyone who enjoys dance, in fact even for those who are seeing dance for the first time, this Rambert tour is a ‘must see’.
Rating: 5/5 
Tickets cost from £11.90 to £32.40 (plus £2.85 transaction fee).
For more information or to book tickets click here or call the box office on 0844 871 7645.
