This Is Rambert

“We're 100, and we are just getting started!” is the battle cry from Rambert

This year Rambert Dance celebrates its centenary, for it was in 1926 that Warsaw-born Marie Rambert founded her dance company in London's Bedford Gardens. Primarily focussing on classical ballet, Rambert soon began to engage contemporary choreographers such as Frederick Ashton and William Chappell to create new works, and Rambert Dance thus became a leading force in innovative contemporary dance.

Over the years, Rambert have become popular return visitors to Norwich Theatre, and for this, their centenary year tour, the company have chosen to perform three works that reflect perfectly the spirit of their mission statement - “To make awe-inspiring, adventurous, and relevant dance, and to make it accessible to everyone”.

The evening begins with 'In Crimson', choreographed by Bobbi Jane Smith and Or Scraiber, and performed to a live piano and keyboard score by Yonatan Daskal. Against the backdrop of a rich velvet crimson curtain, a rotating troupe of ten dancers take it in turns to deliver a series of shape-shifting duets that blossom and grow into an ever-evolving, and increasingly intimate ritual, with the audience as an almost voyeuristic viewer.

In complete contrast, ‘Hop(e)storm’, featuring choreography from French collective (La)Horde, is presented as a chopped-up, re-arranged, and re-constructed patchwork of rhythm pieces and synchronised routines, in which twelve dancers create a chronological pathway that begins with 1930's lindy-hop, and traverses the decades, passing through 1950’s Jailhouse Rock, before arriving at 90's hardcore rave, and beyond. It is a collective confluence of synchronised styles and energies that are laid out like a chronological map, and yet are in a constantly changing state of flux, always evolving and developing as new rhythms and movements are introduced. Primary colours dominate the lighting, shifting from red to green to blue as the tempo, the beat and the moods change with the passage of time.

After the interval we find that the stage has been transformed into a modern-day international airport departure lounge. A destination board scrolls relentlessly, and with increasing urgency, through a list of the upcoming 24 hours' departure details. Meanwhile, a procession of passengers arrive and depart, each carrying their own baggage, and individual tales of love and betrayal. We witness their transit routines, recognising familiar anxieties – the inconveniences of flight delays, the fear of missing their boarding slot, and the traumas of mis-placed luggage. This is a high-energy work, performed by sixteen dancers who each take on a specific character as they navigate their way through these choreographed snapshots of phobias and fears. Each is performed within its own stressful and time-intensive framework. With sixteen dancers negotiating the pathways and pressures of a busy airport terminal, Emma Evelein's 'Gallery of Consequence' becomes a mesmerising 'fly-on-the-wall' experience, and a totally engrossing finale to an excellent and innovative evening of contemporary dance.

“We're 100, and we are just getting started!” is the battle cry from Rambert and, judging from tonight's performance, the next hundred years are going to be an absolute blast. If only we could find a way to join them on that entire upcoming ride.