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Dame Marie Rambert DBE (born Cyvia Rambam; 20 February 188812 June 1982) was a Polish-born English dancer and Pedagogy who exerted great influence on British ballet, both as a dancer and teacher.
Her father, Yakov Ramberg (1855–1928), born in Vištytis, a small town in Suwałki Governorate (nowadays in Lithuania), was a learned merchant and Hebrew publisher and lexicographer, and a Zionism. Her mother, Eiga Ramberg (née Lap), born in the town of Suchowola (nowadays in north-east Poland), daughter of Rabbi Elhanan Tzvi Lap, was a community worker."Ramberg, Eiga," in: Sefer Halshim: Lexicon Eretzyisra'eli, Tel Aviv: Masada, 5697 1937, p. 2023. (Hebrew)
Rambert was the fourth of seven children. The eldest child, Rakhel, was the wife of Hebrew writer Micha Josef Berdyczewski. The second, Ewa Ramberg-Figulla, was a Slavist, the wife of German Hittitologist Hugo Heinrich Figulla and mother of physicist Johannes FigullaAvner Holtzman, An Image Before my Eyes, Tel Aviv: Am Oved ( Ofakim), 2001, pp. 29–33, 240 (Hebrew). Rambert had a third older Sister, Wella Alapin; younger twin siblings, Hanan and Dvora; and another young brother, Eliezer (Julius) ( ibid). (father-in-law of German writer Christoph Hein and grandfather of German writer Jakob Hein).
Rambert met her husband Ashley Dukes, a soldier on leave, at a dinner party in 1917. In Rambert's autobiography she says "after four days of personal meetings, and seven months of correspondence we were married on 3 March 1918."Marie Rambert, "Quicksilver: Autobiography" (London: St Martin's Press, 1972), p. 94. This was done partly as a joke so that Dukes could get four weeks of extended leave instead of two days. Their marriage lasted 41 years, until he died in 1959; the couple had two daughters, Angela (1920–2006) and Helena. The poet, Aidan Andrew Dun, is her grandson.
In 1905, after becoming active in political riots, and the tragic day of May Day, Rambert's parents urged her at one point to move to Paris and take up medicine while safely living with her aunt and uncle who were also doctors. She attended a party where she danced a mazurka and danced it with such liveliness that there was applause afterwards; this was her first performance, whether she thought it or not. She met Raymond Duncan, brother of Isadora, at this same party, who congratulated her on a wonderful performance, and again she was back into her passion for dance. She studied with Madame Rat from the Paris Opera, and later studied with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, at Dalcroze College who introduced her to eurhythmics.
One day at the Dalcroze College, Sergei Diaghilev, watched a class and then asked her to come back to Berlin and study with him in the Ballets Russes. There, Rambert aided them with figuring out Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring with Vaslav Nijinsky. She hesitantly accepted and collaborated with the Ballets Russes led by Diaghilev from 1912 to 1913. In Ballets Russes she was in the corps de ballet for ballet performances such as Swan Lake, Giselle, and Scheherazade. After a tour with Nijinsky and Ballets Russes, Rambert's contract was not continued and she decided it was time for a new chapter. In 1914, she moved to the United Kingdom, and studied under Enrico Cecchetti.Jane Pritchard, "Rambert: A Celebration of the Company’s First Seventy Years" (London, Rambert Dance Company 1996), pp. 13–20.
Ashley Dukes, Marie's husband, renovated a building and made it into Mercury Theatre, where the majority of Ballet Rambert's performance occurred. It was said that 'Notting Hill Gate, where the Mercury Theatre stood, was on the slopes of Olympus'.Jane Pritchard, "Celebration", p. 12. Ballet Rambert has performed such ballets as Coppelia, as well as Balanchine's Night Shadow.
Rambert was adamant about finding new and upcoming choreographers. Some of her students and later her colleagues included Ashton, Antony Tudor, and Agnes de Mille, to name a few. In 1965 Rambert, with the help of "Norman Morrice, her newest discovery, completely reorganized the company to stress modern dance".Jack Anderson,"Ballet and Modern Dance: A Concise History", (Princeton, New Jersey Book Company, 1986), p. 185. and The repertoire of the company eventually came back to more contemporary ballets, but still has a vast list of pieces that the company has performed throughout the years. She cooperated with Millicent Hodson, to restore Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography of The Rite of Spring in 1979. The restoration of choreography was completed in 1987. Rambert is known for helping to create and keep the ballet community strong in Britain. "The creation of Ballet in Britain is one of the grandest achievements in the artistic annals of our century. It is owed absolutely to the idealism which fired Rambert and Ninette de Valois",Jane Pritchard, "Celebration", p. 16. the founder of The Royal Ballet. She was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1962, when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate.
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