Marie Rambert

Marie Rambert was hired by Diaghilev to help Nijinsky count Stravinsky's bars, and went on to found the oldest dance company in Britain. She was born Cyvia Rambam to a Jewish family in Warsaw, was sent to Paris after student political trouble, and trained under Emile Jaques-Dalcroze in eurhythmics - a system for teaching musicians to feel rhythm through movement. That is why Diaghilev brought her in for The Rite of Spring in 1913: the metre changes constantly and the dancers could not hold it, and Nijinsky needed someone who could. She settled in London, married the playwright Ashley Dukes, and opened a school in 1920. Ballet Rambert followed, and its real distinction is what came out of it: she found Frederick Ashton, who had no money and started late, and pushed him into choreographing; Antony Tudor, Andree Howard and Norman Morrice followed. She had an eye for choreographers rather than for stars, which is rarer. The company survived on almost nothing for decades, turned to modern dance in 1966 rather than close, and still exists as Rambert. She was famously sharp-tongued, did cartwheels into her seventies, and published a memoir called Quicksilver. She was made a Dame in 1962. She married the playwright Ashley Dukes, who bought the Mercury Theatre in Notting Hill where the company performed for decades on a stage barely eighteen feet wide. Antony Tudor made Jardin aux lilas and Dark Elegies there. She continued teaching into her eighties and died at ninety-four. Her company was the first in Britain to give a full evening of ballet by a single British choreographer.

• Lived: 1888 CE – 1982 CE
• Nationality: British
• Roles: artist