Rambert, Dame Marie, stage name of Cyvia Rambam 1888-1982
Polish-born British ballet dancer and teacher

Marie Rambert was born in Warsaw. She was sent to Paris to study medicine, but became involved in artistic circles and began to study eurhythmics. In 1913 she worked on Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She moved to London and began to dance and teach, marrying playwright Ashley Dukes in 1918. In 1930, 10 years after opening her own dance studio, she formed the Ballet Club, a permanent producing and performing organization which featured dancer Alicia Markova and choreographer Frederick Ashton. She was particularly interested in promoting new ballets, and always encouraged her pupils to produce works; this led inevitably to occasional financial difficulties. Her company (which had become Ballet Rambertin 1935) had been expanding since the 1940s, but by 1966 was reduced to a small group which concentrated on new works and began to embrace modern dance techniques.

In the mid-1970s the company performed work by Glen Tetley, John Chesworth and Christopher Bruce; it has grown to become one of Great Britain's major touring contemporary dance companies. She exerted a major influence on the development of modern dance and was made a DBE in 1962.

Bibliography: Mary Clarke, Dancers of Mercury (1962); Lionel Bradley, Sixteen Years of Ballet Rambert, 1930-1946 (1946).