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Gary Lambert

Programme Leader, MFA/MA Choreography

Dance

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Faculty of Dance
Laban Building
Creekside
London
SE8 3DZ

Tel: +44 (0)20 8691 8600

Email: g.lambert@trinitylaban.ac.uk

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Biography

Gary teaches Cunningham-based technique across the undergraduate dance programme at Trinity Laban, and also on the MA Dance Performance (Transitions Dance Company) Programme.

He is Component Leader for BA1 Choreography and the OYP Devising and Performance. Gary also devises and choreographs work for BA1 Performance Project and BA3 commissioned works.

Qualifications / Educational Background

Gary Lambert trained at the Royal Ballet School and worked with the Royal Ballet as a graduate. In 1983 he joined London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet) dancing for two years, working with choreographers Glen Tetley, Alvin Ailey, Sir Frederick Ashton, Roland Petit and Christopher Bruce before moving on to Rambert Dance Company in 1985. Whilst with Rambert, he worked and danced in works by Richard Alston, Merce Cunningham, Glen Tetley, Robert North, Ian Spink, Michael Clarke, Christopher Bruce, Lucinda Childs, Siobhan Davies, Ashley Page and Laurie Booth, receiving national and international acclaim for his performances as a dancer. In addition to dancing, he has choreographed works for Rambert Dance Company and Phoenix Dance Company, where he was Assistant Artistic Director from 1993-96,  presenting  works in Phoenix Dance Company’s Repertory nationally and internationally, such as the Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta 1996. Other commissions include works for English National Ballet, Scottish Dance Theatre, Ricochet Dance Company, Loop Dance Company, Tambuka Dance Company (the National Contemporary Dance Company of Zimbabwe) Ffin Dance and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

Creative Output

His independent roles such as choreographer, teacher and performer, led him to co-establish the company Small Axe in 1992, an Arts Council of England project funded Dance Company, with a national touring and educational profile. The company received acclaim for the work Cold Ground Drifting at the International Choreographic Competition in Groningen, the Netherlands in 1994, winning first prize. His collaborations include projects as a dancer and choreographers with the likes of artists such as Laurie Booth, Requair, Storm Garden, Actual Factual, 97-98 and Rosemary Butcher, Scan, 2001. In 1992 he choreographed Meantime for the BBC 2 Dance House Season, directed by Peter Mumford with music by John Mark Gowen. In 1994 his choreography and improvised performance Five Dances for the Five Floor Project was a response to Hans Peter Kuhn’s sound installation for Art Angel. In 1995 he choreographed Movements in 8 for Phoenix Dance Company, in collaboration with the Jazz composer Orphy Robinson and Artistic Director Maggie Morris.

In 1999 Gary presented XXL, an original digital site-specific performance work at the Arches Glasgow, commissioned by the Tramway in collaboration with DJ’s Carl Cox and Dave Clarke, setting an installation dance performance within a clubnite environment. Degrees of Freedom a solo work, commissioned by Edinburgh Dance Base was performed at the Edinburgh festival in 2004. It was performed again that year at Laban’s Bonnie Bird Theatre and again in 2005 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, summer collection, at the Millennium Theatre, Cardiff and Paris. In 2010 the solo was re-worked for the Albany Theatre, Deptford as part of “Our Lives in Dance”, an evening of solo works by independent dance artists. Gary was previously Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Dance in 2004 at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where he has worked since 1998, teaching Cunningham based technique, Choreography and creating commissioned works. He was Guest Artist at White Oak, Jacksonville University MFA programme in the USA. In 2012 he was appointed Creative Director at Tanz@Namedy, establishing a dance programme for the Princess Von Hohenzollern at Burg Namedy, Germany, presenting works by European and British artists. He was awarded the Howard Gilman Fellowship in 2013 by the Howard Gilman foundation, to undertake a MFA in Choreography at Jacksonville University, Florida, which he completed in 2015. He is currently engaged in developing new work in response to his research.