Features
To Infinity...
Mark Baldwin talks to Viv Hardwick about bringing
Rambert Dance Company to Newcastle and working
with TV's Vicar of Dibley composer Howard Goodall
HAVING opted out of
choreography for two years,
isn't there some small part of
Rambert Dance Company
artistic director Mark Baldwin
that feels he could always
improve on work that he's commissioned for
the current tour to Newcastle?
"I have to say that you're probably right
there, but I'm too diplomatic to say anything.
Mind you, if something is really bugging me
and I'm think to myself well, that's not
going to work' I go and tell them and
choreographers and designers are usually
open to what you have to say, not always
because I have come across people who won't
change it,," explains Baldwin.
He reveals that current designer Georg
Meyer-Wiel trained as a taxidermist before
going to the Royal College of Art and ended
up studying theatre design, and working on a
Rambert piece called Infinity.
"You'll see from the costumes that he's
made the bones look like they're on the
outside of the body. He calls that
exoskeletons and rose petals rain down
during the whole piece," explains Baldwin,
who took charge of Rambert back in 2002.
He feels that things are best when it's a
repertoire company and counts the current
World View tour as reflecting the best dance
that can be created from inside and outside
influences.
A piece called L'eveil comes from
dancer/choreographer Melanie Teall; Infinity
is from Australian choreographer Garry
Stewart, Swansong is a 1987 favourite from
former artistic director Christopher Bruce
and US choreographer Doug Varone has
added the new work, Scribblings, which is a
first commission for Rambert.
"L'eveil has six of our most beautiful
women dressed in bathing costumes and
has a raunchy side and poetic and girly
aspects. Swansong is quite powerful with
three men in it and long, at 40 minutes.
"Scribblings is amazing and really fast and
a big company piece with about 18 dancers
and they absolutely go for it. It's inspired by
an American composer called John Adams'
who was reading a Schonberg score while his
six-year-old son was watching Roadrunner
on TV and they somehow got mixed together.
You can hear the cartoon element in it and
the company look like dancing lollies,"
explains Baldwin.
"Infinity includes music by a club
composer in Australia so this is quite driving
and rhythmic and this just builds until it
flies out the door at the end. He (Stewart)
imagines how our last journey might be and
Infinity required our dancers to learn how to
tumble and do yoga because they stand on
their heads for quite a long time at one point.
Not only are they skilled dancers with their
contemporary technique, but this has
pushed the whole thing in a different
direction and make it very athletic. But it is
quite a brutal work for the dancers."
Fiji-born Baldwin arrived at Rambert as a
dancer via the Royal New Zealand Ballet
before running his own company from 1993
until 2001. His work, Constant Speed, was
nominated for the 2006 Olivier award and,
after a self-imposed sabbatical, he's busy on
another work.
"It's a requiem, called Eternal Light, by
Howard Goodall, who wrote all the music for
Mr Bean, Blackadder and the theme for the
Vicar of Dibley. But his speciality is choral
music and, obviously, we will try and bring
this to Newcastle next time we come and
we'll use local choirs as we tour around the
country. It's been written and recorded by
EMI using the choir from Christchurch
College, Oxford, and it's a big deal for me,"
says Baldwin who aims to open the work in
Manchester in October and tour it to London
in November.
"We wanted it to be a requiem for the
living rather than having dead soldiers about
the place which is rather too realistic at the
moment. With me there's always a twist so
I've added a toucan using a costume which
cost £7,000 and a finale in paradise in a piece
which will last about 45 minutes. So it's long
in ten movements and because the music is
so beautiful and half the voices are innocent
and gorgeous children I had to be quite
careful. "I tell people it's like making the
most amazing blue dress and then ruining it
by putting too many ribbons on it," he jokes.
The work is likely to use all 22 of
Rambert's dancers at a time when Baldwin is
also battling to move the 80-year-old
company from its dilapidated Chiswick base
to purpose-built studios on London's South
Bank.
"Dance is the faster growing art form and
we're told that the audience at Sadler's Wells
(where Rambert airs most work) is growing
at nine per cent a year. Probably that's
because we have collaboration between,
dancer, choreographer, composer designer
and live orchestra it's a wonderful
extravagance.
"The bad thing about dance being popular
is that once Rambert used to be THE touring
company without much competition, but
now we've got a lot. A lot of young people are
studying dance and we teach about 10,000
students a year at workshops which is quite
thrilling.
"We've got planning permission for our
new building on the car park behind the
National Theatre, but its part of a complex
involving a 43-floor tower block which has
been called in (challenged by English
National Heritage). Even if we don't go there,
the company needs to move on and I'm
pretty confident we'll move forward," he says
of the planned £13m project.
"If you see me at Newcastle I'm probably
going to look tired," he jests.
■ Rambert Dance Company, World View
Tour 2008, Newcastle Theatre Royal,
Tuesday-Saturday. Box Office: 08448-11-21-
21 www.theatreroyal.co.uk
10:59am Thursday 27th March 2008
Print 
Email this
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
