ABSTRACT
Richard Alston was one of the original students at the London School of Contemporary Dance School, beginning his career as choreographer back in 1968. He later studied with Merce Cunningham and then worked principally as an independent choreographer throughout Europe. He was made Resident Choreographer with Ballet Rambert in 1980 and later became Rambert’s Artistic director. He left Rambert in 1992 and choreographed a number of works for various companies, among which was the Shobana Jeyasingh Company. The piece Alston choreographed for Shobana’s dancers, Delicious Arbour set to Purcell’s music, made use of the Bharata Natyam idiom in an experimental way and indeed broke new ground. Alston was subsequently made Artistic Director of the Contemporary Dance Trust, forming his own company with former members of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre (LCDT) in 1994. Here he talks to Vena Gheerawo about Delicious Arbour and what it was like to work with a form, a ‘language’ as he likes calling it, which was fundamentally alien and yet so close to him at a deep level in that it reflected his sense of classicism.
