Kenneth Bannerman, who has died aged 89, danced with Ballet Rambert between 1958 and 1966, and was the first British dancer to take on the role of Basilio, the barber, in Marius Petipa’s now well-known Don Quixote, when the company invited Witold Borkowski to stage the ballet in 1962.
It is a role generally associated with dancers of the calibre of Rudolf Nureyev, Vladimir Vasiliev or Carlos Acosta, so it says much for Bannerman’s talent that in the 1960s it became associated with him. It also showcased his stage partnership with Lucette Aldous, the vivacious young ballerina who would go on to be one of Nureyev’s favourite partners.
In the late 1950s and early 60s Rambert was dancing eight performances a week and constantly travelling from one venue to the next. It was a tough life that meant the careers of dancers were often shorter than they are today, when their health and welfare are better protected. After suffering a back injury, Bannerman had to retire at 30, and thereafter he worked for 30 years as a Post Office clerk.
He was born in Scotland, in Haddington, East Lothian, the fourth of the five sons of James, a doctor and general surgeon, and Margaret (nee Robertson), a nurse. At the outbreak of the second world war, when Ken was still an infant, it was decided that Margaret should take the boys to Canada, settling for the duration in West Vancouver. After their return in 1945 and while still in primary school, Ken expressed an interest in ballet, and began to train with Marjorie Middleton in Edinburgh. He made his debut dancing in pantomime in Perth.
Bannerman had seen a performance by Ballet Rambert in Edinburgh and was so impressed that when, at the age of 16, Middleton sent him to London with letters of recommendation to both the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School and the Rambert School he went straight to the latter and was accepted, so did not bother with Sadler’s Wells. It was probably a wise decision as, soon after he graduated into the company, there was a vacancy for a principal classical dancer, which he was able to fill.
Returning after two years of national service with the Royal Artillery, he quickly took on the roles of Franz in Coppélia, Albrecht in Giselle, and the male role in Les Sylphides. If his first performances were somewhat tentative, he soon made them his own. When Bannerman was featured in the Dancer You Will Know series in Dance and Dancers in 1961, the author noted that “it seemed hardly possible that this was the same boy who, retiring and diffident, had started to walk on for the Ballet Rambert only two or three years previously”.
It appears that Bannerman was the first Scot to dance the role of the Scotsman, James, in La Sylphide, choreographed in 1836 in Denmark by August Bournonville. He took over the role in 1960 from the Danish star Flemming Flindt. The intricate style of choreography, new to Rambert, challenged him, and when the production was filmed by the BBC in 1961 Flindt was brought back to dance James and Bannerman relegated to the role of one of the two village boys who in this production each danced a solo in Act 1.
Bannerman appeared in Norman Morrice’s groundbreaking contemporary works, including Two Brothers (1958) and The Travellers (1963), took the role of the Foreman in Hazaña (1959), and contributed a particularly interesting portrait showing the intertwining of life and art in Conflicts (1962), a ballet about creating a ballet. When in 1964 he created the focal role of the Young Man in Cul de Sac, the critic Clive Barnes noted that “Bannerman has always been superb in Morrice’s works.”
Bannerman’s repertory was wide. He was hardly the obvious dancer for the fiendishly difficult solo for Harlequin in George Balanchine’s Night Shadow (1961), although he managed to reveal some of its humour.
He excelled in the Popular Song in Façade in partnership with Morrice and he gave a moving rendition of the fifth solo in Antony Tudor’s Dark Elegies. Other roles included St Leon in Pas de Déesses, one of the somewhat anonymous Cavaliers in John Cranko’s Spanish-inspired La Reja, and appearances in Walter Gore’s Simple Symphony.
Bannerman’s longtime partner was John Webley, an administrator at Rambert for many years; they entered into a civil partnership on 21 December 2005, the day that such partnerships became legal in Britain. Together they continued to support the company and its move from Chiswick in west London to a new purpose-built studio on the South Bank in 2013.
Webley died in 2023. Bannerman is survived by his younger brother, Douglas, five nephews and five nieces.
• Kenneth Boog Watson Bannerman, dancer, born 4 October 1936; died 23 May 2026
