Richard Alston, moments of remembrance

Written by Siobhan Davies

So many wonderful things have been written about Richard’s artistry, his eloquence, his teaching, and each of these I have experienced over our friendship of 60 years. More than 60!

It is the word friendship which matters to me most right now. The word friend comes from Old English and means one who loves, or the loving one. Richard is loved by me. I feel as if a sturdy tent pole has been uprooted and I am flapping in the wind and untethered. But of course the love remains.

Our friendship arrived by how we spent time together, how we worked side by side, and how we witnessed each other. Below I have written a very few of the many moments that I treasure.

We first met at the Berners Place studio. When I entered for the first time there was this young man sitting on the floor and reading a book while the rest of the dancers were seriously warming up. I took to him immediately.

We became friends, and at the weekends I was introduced to his love of architecture, and we would walk the city of London and explore the Hawksmoor churches. We were occasionally at a service and listened to the choral music. We shared a love of Bach and Handel, and Richard also loved the sound of traditional hymns.

We had both been to art school and visited together the Hayward Gallery exhibition by Antony Caro in 1969, and through both this exhibition and standing under the arches and domes of the churches, I began to appreciate his excitement in a use of space and how to mark it through dance.

Transit was his first dance, for four women. My memory is that we held on to each other in a tight circle and unwound into a line, then gathered up to release out again. Initially, none of us truly knew what was required, but Richard brought a mixture of firmness to his requests as well as the capacity to crease up with laughter when something didn’t work.

That sweet smile of his – it wasn’t a broad smile, but in his last days I was so happy when it would gently arrive along with the sparkle in his eyes. I will always treasure that smile.

Later in our friendship I was in the cast of several of his works. My body needed to arc in Nowhere Slowly, be gentle in The Field of Mustard, have speed, length and attack in Rainbow Bandit, and propulsion in Headlong as I waited for its NASA countdown towards lift-off and I sprang onto the stage into blinding arc lights.

I was not a technical dancer, as many of his superb dancers have been in more recent years, but I had plenty of heart and enquiry. Initially we accompanied each other as we explored what dance does, and how. I loved his inventiveness and enjoyed learning through him, knowing that I was helping him as well.

In Doublework, the last duet is for Richard and myself. The movements live in my body as a deep mark of our relationship – to be working with him as a partner, and to demonstrate that in performance. It was so vital to me as part of my artistic growth, and now it helps me see our friendship as well. There is one moment when I am in a lunge with one arm reaching forward and Richard steps in behind me and echoes the lunge. He lightly holds me by the waist, his other arm circles from behind him above his head and is stilled when parallel to my arm. Both our arms are aligned, not touching, and both reaching forward and out.

At the close of the dance, he picks my curled body up, turns us around and then lowers me to the floor. He folds his body and I feel that we are now soft-shelled in an embrace of love and friendship.

Both moments describe so much of what had grown between us.