For a company celebrating its 100th anniversary, This is Rambert does not feel like a ceremonial retrospective. The evening presents Rambert as a body still in motion: restless, technically dazzling, emotionally alert, and firmly attached to the speed and uncertainty of the present.
The programme opens with In Crimson, choreographed by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber. The work unfolds almost entirely across the front of the stage, framed by a deep red curtain and the live piano. One dancer enters, then two, then three, before the stage returns again to solitude. The dancers move like passers-by: sometimes brushing past each other, sometimes meeting briefly, dancing together, then disappearing.
In the gentle, wandering sound of the piano, the piece seems to suggest more than its surface description of casual, brief encounters in full view. Peering into the tense spaces between what is seen and what remains hidden, I found myself reading it as a kind of montage: fragments of arrival, encounter, separation, and memory. It evokes the passing of time, but also something of Rambert’s own 100-year flow—people come and go, but energy continues to circulate. The final image of Naya Lovell disappearing with the gramophone-like music into the crimson curtain feels especially evocative, as if drawing the audience into “that memory” with her.
Hop(e)storm by (LA)HORDE: Rave Culture and Collective Energy
If In Crimson is intimate and cinematic, Hop(e)storm is a burst of collective energy. Created by French collective (LA)HORDE, the work feels closer to a rave or carnival. Its high-powered choreography, combined with Eric Wurtz’s striking lighting design, pulls the audience into a collision of red, green, rhythm, and near-frenzy.
For a company celebrating its 100th anniversary, This is Rambert does not feel like a ceremonial retrospective. The evening presents Rambert as a body still in motion: restless, technically dazzling, emotionally alert, and firmly attached to the speed and uncertainty of the present.
The dancers move with abandon, but underneath the chaos is a sharp technical precision. It is loud, physical, excessive, and communal. At the same time, I wondered whether it might have been even stronger in a less conventional performance space. Its energy seems to ask for closer proximity to the audience, or perhaps even a more immersive setting.
Emma Evelein’s Gallery of Consequence: A Liminal Masterpiece
The evening closes with Emma Evelein’s Gallery of Consequence, which I first saw at its Edinburgh premiere in 2025. Seeing it again, it remains just as gripping. Set in an airport, the work immediately connects to a space familiar to almost everyone: transitional, anonymous, full of waiting, delay, private anxiety, and accidental encounter. Evelein captures this liminal world with remarkable detail.
What makes the piece engaging is its characterisation. Each dancer carries a distinct story or emotional texture, and the choreography blends visual richness with sharp human observation. Moments of comedy and exaggerated behaviour perfectly embody the emotional turbulence of these sliding-door choices. At the back, the constantly changing flight numbers occasionally dissolve into dancing figures, making the airport environment feel vividly alive with uncertainty.
Rambert’s Next Century: Capturing the Present Moment
Watching Gallery of Consequence again reminded me why Rambert’s work feels so compelling. Their performances are not only beautifully choreographed; they are unmistakably current. They build worlds, people, atmospheres, and social textures.
As artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer has said, Rambert’s work “captures this moment in time.” At the beginning of its next century, Rambert appears as one still responding to the world around it. The closing scene of boarding and departure in Gallery of Consequence seems especially apt: a doorway opening, a new journey underway, and further possibilities unfolding ahead.
Featured Image: This is Rambert, Photo Tim Bret-Day, Artistic Direction Benoit Swan-Pouffer; Concept, Creative Direction and Styling Susan Bender Whitfield; Dancers Dylan Tedaldi and Hannah Hernandez
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