It’s hard to imagine a time when ballet was not the kingpin of staged dance in the UK. Though narrative dance had been performed before the 1920s (the first recorded one was The Loves Of Mars And Venus at London’s Drury Lane in 1717), there were no home-grown companies dedicated to producing anything we’d recognise as ballet today. Enter Marie Rambert, a dancer born in Poland to a Lithuanian Jewish family, who had moved to Paris in 1905 to study with dance legends Sergei Diaghilev and Vaslav Nijinsky. Rambert arrived in London in 1914 and by 1926 had established a regular performing troupe, later known as The Ballet Club. 

In 1935 they adopted the name ‘Ballet Rambert’ and staged popular works by the Ballets Russes alongside genre-bending new modernist pieces from choreographers such as Frederick Ashton. The ‘Ballet’ part of the name was dropped in 1987, reflecting a shift towards a blend of contemporary and classical styles. These days under current artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer, you’re as likely to find avant-garde dance-theatre whimsy from Ben Duke on the repertoire as you are sprawling, seductive neo-ballets such as Peaky Blinders. The centenary touring programme promises ‘bite-sized, high impact’ works, combining Lindy Hop, airports, liminal spaces and live music. The best thing about Rambert is that it takes risks while staying accessible. You can recommend a Rambert show to your dance snob uncle or your dance-phobic partner and know that both will have an amazing time.

This Is Rambert, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Thursday 2–Saturday 4 July; picture: Hugo Glendinning.

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