Open dance house

When Rambert opened its award-winning building on London’s South Bank in November 2013, at the heart of our vision for the new building was a desire for it to become an ‘open house’ for dance – a place where the public could engage with the company in a way that had not previously been possible. A key part of realising this vision is Rambert Revealed, a week-long programme of behind-the-scenes events that we will run annually.

People are often quite surprised at the level of access we give the public to observe class and rehearsals, but there has never been internal resistance…

Our first Rambert Revealed week took place in October. When putting the programme together, we wanted to focus on aspects that were key to our ongoing work, such as rigorous technical training for dancers, choreographic development, the relationship between dance and music, our support for emerging artists, and the belief that participation in dance should be available for people of all ages and abilities. A variety of events were programmed throughout the week including:

• A sneak preview of our newest dance works
• Sessions exploring our extensive archive
• Choreography masterclasses
• Insight events into dancers’ daily training and rehearsal processes
• Opportunities to watch dancers in class
• Daily classes for adults of all levels from beginner to professional
• Tours of the building.

One of the major improvements that the new building provides is that our dancers are now able to rehearse alongside the Rambert Orchestra, something that was not possible in our old studios in Chiswick in west London. A highlight of the week was a rehearsal with full orchestra of Shobana Jeyasingh’s new work ‘Terra Incognita’, with a specially commissioned score by Gabriel Prokofiev, ahead of its world premiere. This was the first time the musicians had rehearsed the score and the first time our dancers had rehearsed with the music played live, so the audience for this event experienced the exciting and complex process involved in staging a new work.

We also delivered a joint session with King’s College London's London Shakespeare Centre. Our Artistic Director Mark Baldwin is interested in using Shakespeare’s verse as a starting point for developing choreography and this session provided him with the chance to work with academics to explore how movement could be generated from a number of different Shakespearean texts. The public was invited in to observe this process.

Artist development is an integral part of our work, particularly supporting choreographers and composers. Two key strands are a music fellowship scheme and an associate companies programme. ‘Late at Rambert’ brought these areas of work together by showcasing the critically acclaimed work of our associate company New Movement Collective and its recent music fellow, the composer Kate Whitley. An audience member, who had known Marie Rambert, commented that he thought she would approve of the work we were delivering at our new home – the best endorsement we could have asked for.

The challenge of the week was accommodating over 40 public events into an already busy working week. Collaboration across the organisation was vital and particularly crucial was the input of our rehearsal directors who put together the dancers’ schedule. We knew staff capacity was an issue in terms of taking bookings for events, so we used an online ticketing company for the majority of the events. In order to effectively manage the flow of people coming through the building, we were aware that it was important not to over-programme but instead stagger events across each day.

People are often quite surprised at the level of access we give the public to observe class and rehearsals, but there has never been internal resistance to this, even if it was a big culture shift from how we operated in Chiswick. I am passionate that these opportunities should be on offer as it is an important way for us to connect directly with those interested in our work. It also gives us the chance to highlight the work we do to produce large-scale work, develop our artists, as well as engage people of all ages and backgrounds in dance. Our first Rambert Revealed was a lot of work but the reward of bringing people closer and providing genuinely unique opportunities was well worth it.

Joce Giles is Director of Creative Projects at Rambert.
www.rambert.org.uk