Marie “Mim” Rambert

Born Cyvia (Cesia) Ramberg in Warsaw to a middle-class Polonized family, Dame Marie “Mim” Rambert was a dancer, choreographer, and patron of the arts. Sent to Paris by her parents after she had become involved in revolutionary politics, Rambert was inspired by Isadora Duncan to pursue dance and ballet, initially performing at salons in the city and studying at the Paris oper. She began using the names Myriam, Marie, and Mim. She was baptized in 1907. Rambert studied eurhythmics under Émile Jacques-Dalcroze before joining Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1912. She collaborated with the company’s lead, Vaslav Nijinsky, in choreographing Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring, 1913; music by Igor Stravinsky). Rambert moved to London at the beginning of World War I, and in 1917, she married playwright Ashley Dukes, becoming a British citizen as a result. In Britain, she formed a ballet school (1920) and later company (1926), whose founding dancer was the Jewish prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Markova. Rambert devoted the rest of her life to the administration of her dance company. She was honored with the French Chevalier, Legion d’Honneur, in 1957 and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1962.