Performance database

Choreographer: Richard Alston
Composer: Fred Fisher, Nelson Cogane, Sammy Mysels, Dick Robertson, Ben Oakland, Milton Drake, William Raskin, Billy Hill, George Gershwin, Jack Lawrence, Chu Berry, Eubie Blake
Lyricist: Ada Benson, Nelson Cogane, Sammy Mysels, Dick Robertson, Ben Oakland, Milton Drake, William Raskin, Billy Hill, Ira Gershwin, Doris Fisher, Jack Lawrence, Andy Razaf
Recording artist: The Ink Spots
Set designer: Jenny Henry
Costume designer: Jenny Henry
Lighting designer: Peter Mumford
Rambert premiere: 26 Jul 1985, Ballet Rambert, Big Top, Battersea Park, London
World premiere: 22 Jun 1983, Second Stride, Leeds Playhouse, Leeds, United Kingdom
Work note: Three of the original six numbers from the Second Stride work were included in the version for Rambert: We Three, Java Jive, and Whispering Grass. In Rambert's performances in 1987, Whispering Grass was cut.
Duration: 22 minutes
Number of dancers: 12 dancers in the Rambert version, reduced to 11 for performances in 1987
Music title: Your Feet's Too Big (Fisher/Benson, 1936); We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me) (Cogane/Mysels/Robertson, 1939); Java Jive (Oakland/Drake, 1940); That's When Your Heartaches Begin (Fisher/Raskin/Hill, 1937); Slap That Bass (Gershwin/Gershwin, 1937); Whispering Grass (Fisher/Fisher, 1940); It's Funny to Everyone But Me (Lawrence, 1939); Christopher Columbus (Berry/Razaf); Memories of You (Blake/Razaf, 1930)
Music details: Recorded music
Source: Programme and reference file in the Rambert Archive
Archive catalogue: WORK/0332

Performances

Date ↿⇂ Programme ↿⇂ Venue ↿⇂
26 Jul 1985
Evening 		Light and Shade | Pierrot Lunaire | Java* Big Top, Battersea Park, London
7 Feb 1986
Evening 		It's A Raggy Waltz* | Songs of the Ghetto* | Pierrot Lunaire | Java Opera Theatre, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
8 Feb 1986
Evening 		It's A Raggy Waltz | Songs of the Ghetto | Pierrot Lunaire | Java Opera Theatre, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
13 Feb 1986
Evening 		It's A Raggy Waltz | No Strings Attached* | Pierrot Lunaire | Java Birmingham Repertory Theatre
14 Feb 1986
Evening 		It's A Raggy Waltz | No Strings Attached | Pierrot Lunaire | Java Birmingham Repertory Theatre
15 Feb 1986
Evening 		It's A Raggy Waltz | No Strings Attached | Pierrot Lunaire | Java Birmingham Repertory Theatre
11 Jun 1986
Evening 		Mercure* | Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan | The Mannequin Dance | 'Unsquare Dance' from 'It's a Raggy Waltz' | 'Popular Song' from 'Façade' | 'Duet' from 'Concertino' | Soirée Musicale | Judgment of Paris | Java Sadler's Wells Theatre, London
25 Jun 1986
Evening 		Swamp | Ricercare | Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum* | Java Sadler's Wells Theatre, London