Under the artistic direction of Mark Baldwin, Rambert Dance Company is well and truly at the top of its game, having won an Olivier, two Critics’ Circle awards, and with sold-out performances at Sadler’s Wells in November 2010. Audiences and critics are united in their praise for Rambert, reinforcing its position as Britain’s national contemporary dance treasure. For its spring season, the Company looks to Dr Oliver Sacks’ masterpiece, Awakenings, for inspiration. Awakenings will be performed at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold, on 16 March 2011
Rambert Dance Company
Winner: Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance 2010
The flu pandemic of 1918 killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, about 5% of the human race, making it the worst pandemic in recorded history. The ‘Spanish’ flu attacked mostly healthy young adults, and it was followed by a mysterious encephalitic sleeping sickness that affected a further five million people. Of those about a third died, while the remaining two thirds lived on, but often in strange somnolent states. Many of them were virtually frozen, like human statues, for decades. In 1969, Dr Sacks, then a young doctor in New York, encountered a few dozen of these survivors and gave them an experimental drug, L-dopa, which enabled many of them to ‘awaken’ after 50 years of immobility.
‘Awakenings, the book, is partly about the delight of free and unfettered movement, contrasted with frozenness, the interrupted or distorted tempos that these deeply parkinsonian patients faced. They often moved, in body and mind, too fast or too slow, losing the musicality of normal movement, speech, or even thought. They often had complex, uncontrollable tics, similar to those of Tourette’s syndrome. Often music and dance were the only ways to restore to them a normal, fluid ‘kinetic melody.’ Aletta Collins and Tobias Picker have created a beautiful, haunting exploration of these ideas, a deep and moving testament to the powers of music, dance, and the body in motion.’
Dr Oliver Sacks, June 2010
Based on true life stories and inspired by Sacks’ book of the same name, made famous by the Hollywood movie starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, Awakenings presented Rambert Dance Company with a very interesting challenge. How do you create a dynamic dance work when ‘sleeping sickness’ lies at the heart of the story?
With the responsibility of interpreting such a complex and human story for the stage, Mark Baldwin invited three of the world’s finest creative talents to collaborate with his world-class dancers.
Choreographer – Aletta Collins. As a British female choreographer, Aletta Collins is an extremely rare breed. With a catalogue of celebrated works spanning two decades, Collins has successfully created award-winning choreography that straddles audiences in the West End and Royal Opera House alike. Collins kicked-off her creativity in 2010 by returning to The Place, where she had started her career 30 years prior, to direct This is the Place, a celebration of 40 years of contemporary dance at Robin Howard’s visionary theatre. Recent works by Aletta Collins include: Shoes for Sadler’s Wells, Anna Nicole for The Royal Opera House, Maybe Yes Maybe, Maybe No Maybe for Phoenix Dance Theatre and Awakenings for Rambert Dance Company.
‘One of the UK’s leading theatre and opera choreographers’ The Guardian
Composer – Tobias Picker. American-born, Tobias Picker began his professional life, still a teen, as an accompanist for Martha Graham, while studying composition at the Juilliard School with Elliott Carter. Picker has been lauded for his symphonic music, including the well-known tone poem Old and Lost Rivers, but his musical genius has spanned many other genres, especially opera. His works have been presented by major performing organisations the world over, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Proms, Munich Philharmonic, Zurich Tonhalle and the Vienna RSO. Tobias Picker’s operatic adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox was staged in a new chamber version, at Opera Holland Park during summer 2010.
‘Our finest composer for the lyric stage’ The Wall Street Journal
Designer – Miriam Buether. Having worked as part of the creative team on Cock by The Royal Court at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, German-born Miriam Buether and her colleagues won the 2010 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. Raised in East Berlin, Buether studied costume and theatre design, working in art installation before moving to set design. Overall winner of the 1999 Linbury Prize, her recent set designs have garnered much critical acclaim including Sucker Punch and My Child, both at The Royal Court Theatre. Following Awakenings, Buether joins forces again with Aletta Collins for Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera, Anna Nicole at The Royal Opera House, February 2011.
‘Fast becoming one of the most exciting designers in the country’ The Financial Times
How the project got started: The remarkable human and poetic story behind the Awakenings commission is that both Daniel Katz, who commissioned the work, and composer Tobias Picker have Tourettes, a neurological syndrome characterized by involuntary vocal and motor tics. When they were introduced to each other by Dr Sacks, a creative spark was ignited: Daniel introduced Tobias to Rambert, and by commissioning Picker’s score, made the creation of the new ballet possible.
‘I decided that I wanted to compose a ballet based on Oliver Sacks’ Awakenings for a few reasons. We are old friends, and I love his writing. His poetic soul speaks to mine. As a friend, Sacks has helped me a great deal in coping with my own multi-layered Tourette tics and to accept them as a part of myself and my art. I wanted to honour that. And because I have suffered from Tourette’s syndrome since early childhood, I identified quite strongly with the symptoms of his patients. Imagining the inner worlds of the newly ‘awakened’ inspired me in my own creative process, and was one of the challenges and joys that Aletta Collins and I experienced in collaborating on our own ‘Awakening.’ Tobias Picker, February 2010
In addition to Awakenings, Rambert Dance Company will also perform the following repertoire as part of its Awakenings Tour 2011: A Linha Curva by Itzik Galili, Cardoon Club by Henrietta Horn, Hush by Christopher Bruce, Monolith by Tim Rushton, RainForest by Merce Cunningham, Roses by Paul Taylor and The Art of Touch by Siobhan Davies
‘What a fabulous way to spend an evening. Rambert director Mark Baldwin has assembled a trio of works that entertain, amuse and please the eye.’ The Sunday Express, November 2010
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