Alston’s Influences

• Artist first before dance, studied fine art at Croydon College.
• Training: Studied at LCDS in 1967 Thai Chi and Contemporary
• Influences: Ashton’s ‘La file Ma Gardee’ by Ashton. Inspired by Cunningham, Graham and Rauschenberg.
• Integrated Cunningham classes into Rambert when he was artistic director
• Frederick Ashton

  • Richard Alston became interested in dance through Ballet, in particular the work of Frederick Ashton.
  • He was the founding choreographer of the Royal Ballet - one of the most influential dance figures of the 20th century.
  • Today the Royal Ballet continue to perform some of his most notable works such as La Fille mal Gardee and Symphonic Variations.
  • Ashton made his choreographic debut for Marie Rambert in 1926.
• Ashton’s stylistic features:

  • Fleeting footwork
  • Elegance
  • Technically demanding content
  • Mime and balletic vocabulary
  • The epaulement (the way the head and shoulders are held)
• Robin Howard

  • 1954 he saw the Martha Graham Company perform in London and realised that’s what was missing from the British dance scene.
  • He convinced Marie Rambert, Martha Graham and others to become patrons of his ‘Contemporary Ballet Trust LTD’.
  • He set up The Place and invited Robert Cohan to become the first artistic director.
  • He sold his own land and possessions to purchase the whole building and devoted his life to The Place until his death in 1989
• Robert Cohan

  • Trained at the Martha Graham School. Joined the Martha Graham Company in 1946.
  • Returned in 1962 for its European tour. Became co-director of the Martha Graham Company with Bertram Ross.
  • In 1967 Robin Howard invited him to become the first artistic director of the Contemporary Dance Trust making him director of The Place, LCDS and LCDT- which he directed for the next 20 years.
  • Cohan and Howard encouraged home grown talent such as Richard Alston, Siobhan Davies and Robert North
• Merce Cunningham

  • American choreographer and dancer (1919 – 2009) •
  • Known for his collaboration with Avant Garde composer and life partner John Cage.
  • A member of the Martha Graham Company before going on to create his own works.
  • Most innovative and influential choreographer of the 20th Century. • Studied fine arts.
  • Cunningham challenged modern dance in the late 1950’s. Innovator of the chance method
  • Cunningham developed his own unique style
• Features of Cunningham’s style:

  • Created pieces separate from the music.
  • Interested in dance for its own sake rather than dance as a narrative medium
  • He used chance procedures as a means of generating both the movements and structures of his work
  • Movement and music would only come together during performance.
  • He incorporated the chance method into his choreography using dice/‘The I Ching’ to determine how the dancer should move.  In the 1990s he used a computer program as a new choreographic approach.