Choreographer Richard Alston, artistic director at Rambert and The Place, dies at 77

The work of celebrated British choreographer Richard Alston, who has died aged 77, has been photographed by the Guardian’s Tristram Kenton for decades. Here is a selection from Alston’s lyrical creations Continue reading...

The radical British choreographer, who has died aged 77, was as warm and graceful as his astonishing body of workThe first contemporary dance I really loved was made by Richard Alston. In the 1990s, I was going to dance class a few times a week and watching the smattering of companies that would tour to Newcastle, where I grew up. There was dance that was pretty or provocative or intellectually stimulating, which I enjoyed or appreciated, but the dance that really had my heart was by Alston, who has died aged 77.I was a pianist, too (and later a music student at Sussex University, with its on-campus theatre where Alston toured) and it was Alston’s deeply musical instincts that got me. They were honed in the gramophone library at Eton, where he’d pull out records by Bach and Billie Holiday or surprise the grazing cows with a blast of Wagner. We had different backgrounds, but musical alignments: a love of baroque, late Romanticism, 20th-century modernism. Continue reading...

Akram Khan among those paying tribute to ‘pioneering’ choreographer of intense musicality and grace who inspired generations of dancersSir Richard Alston, the British choreographer and teacher who took contemporary dance into new directions with his elegant and intelligent creations, has died at the age of 77. A former artistic director of Rambert and the Place, where he made more than 50 pieces for the Richard Alston Dance Company, he was celebrated for lucid, emotionally attuned work that was often as graceful as it was rigorous.His death was announced on Monday by the Richard Alston Foundation, which was established in 2021 to promote contemporary dance and preserve his work. “It is with deep sadness that we have to report the death of Sir Richard Alston,” said the statement. “After a period of ill-health, and despite exceptional treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead and the support of his closest friends, he passed away peacefully at his home on 7 September. While Richard is best known for his extraordinary career and contribution to contemporary dance, we will also remember him for his wit, warmth and generosity of spirit.” Continue reading...