Richard Alston online

It takes more than one tight-fisted financial decision to keep the 71-year-old veteran choreographer Sir Richard Alston down.

Last March we mourned the demise of his Richard Alston Dance Company, following a decision by Arts Council England to cut its subsidy to an unsustainable level. We lamented the loss of some of the freshest, most joyous, most musical choreography created in the UK over the past 25 years.

Sure, others can, and surely will, dance Alston works; but nobody could ever dance Richard Alston like the Richard Alston Dance Company.

So we are deliriously happy to learn that Sir Richard has now launched a website where we can view excerpts from a wide selection of his works going all the way back to the early 90s.

Among this scrumptious selection is one of Culture Whisper’s favourites: Mazur, a 2015 dance for two men set to Chopin mazurkas, here with its original, and so far unsurpassed, cast of Jonathan Goddard and Liam Riddick.

The 22 works included in the website give a fair idea of the range of inspiration for Alston’s work, be it religious aspiration in Proverb, set to music by Steve Reich, and Rejoice in the Lamb, created in 2012 and set to music by Benjamin Britten (an Alston favourite); to the sheer exuberance of Carnaval, in the eponymous piece from 2016, and the courtly grandeur of Monteverdi’s baroque music in Voices and Light Footsteps, which Alston created for his company’s final season.

In short, Richard Alston’s new website is a welcome arrival on the virtual dance scene and will go a long way towards mitigating his company’s absence from the stage.

You can access Richard Alston's website here.