BWW INTERVIEWS: Rambert Dance Company And Adam Cooper At THE OLIVIERS 2010

So are you pleased to win the award?

Elizel Long: We deserve it! We're a bunch of hard working dancers. It's nice to be recognised for it.

Adam Cooper: This company are the most amazing company, these dancers work harder than any other dance company and I'm not just saying that cos my brother rehearses them.

What's been the highlight of your year?

Mbulelo Ndabeni: Doing the piece we've done - the repertoire we've done this year has been great.

It seems like Rambert's profile just keeps going up and up.

Elizel: We've just been labelled 'raw, rich and relevant'. A bunch of new generation dancers and I think it's really great.

Was winning a complete shock?

Mbulelo: I didn't expect anything. Ha, I was like 'no, we have to win, I didn't come all this way dressed up for nothing'.

Are you normally found in your tracksuit bottoms?

I'm a dancer!

How does it feel presenting in that room, Adam? Is it quite an intimidating environment?

Adam: It's an incredibly intimidating environment. But it's great. These events are great, to celebrate what we do and last year was such an amazing year both for theatre and for dance and dance is just becoming more and more popular. It's just great that companies like Rambert get the recognition they deserve.

What's happening with you at the moment?

Adam: I've just been doing White Christmas up at the Lowry, we did a sell-out six week season. Fingers crossed we're going to do it again next year. And I'm developing dance shows that I did last year, Shall We Dance, trying to get it on tour. Carrying on, really. More of the same.

What about you guys, what's next?

Mbulelo: Newcastle, Sheffield, and by the way we want to recruit more audience so in May we are doing Sadler's Wells again!

Finally, what did you guys think of So You Think You Can Dance?

Adam: It was nice, it was okay.

Lady: Mark Baldwin (Rambert's artistic director) is one of the choreographers, so he's brought us to a whole new audience really.

Adam: It's showing how popular dance is now, really. It's great that it gets on mainstream TV. one of the problems we've had over the years is trying to get dance on TV. To have it on a mainstream, BBC1 Saturday night show is just amazing. So yeah, it's all good, good for the dance industry and great for the audience to get to see our dancers.

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