Keith Hodiak obituary

Keith Hodiak, who has died aged 75, danced with Ballet Rambert from 1972 until 1975; he was one of the first Black dancers to perform with a UK national dance company.

He joined the company in a period of change, when it was dancing modern works without entirely forsaking its balletic traditions. It had become a smaller operation, so all the dancers took solo roles and the company danced in a variety of venues, experimenting in London with productions on thrust stages such as the Young Vic or in the round at the Roundhouse. Significantly, British dance companies were beginning to present dancers from many ethnic backgrounds.

Hodiak was the first Afro-Caribbean dancer to join Rambert. As such he became a role model for other Black dancers. Glen Tetley’s choreography had become Rambert’s signature work, and in 1973-74 Hodiak danced in Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain, in part inspired by tai chi, which Hodiak continued to practise, and he took over the role of the god-figure in Ziggurat, which took advantage of his strong stage presence.

The critic John Percival noted in Dance and Dancers in November 1973 that the company was dancing better than ever in Ziggurat. “Keith Hodiak was the god: tall, with a marvellously glowing dark skin and a face which under the Perspex mask looks like an African sculpture, he gave great height to the straight up-and-down jumps with unflexed knees, and caught with calm aplomb the other men … who leapt hard at him in the course of their solos.”

As well as modelling Hodiak appeared in popular television shows such as Are You Being Served? Photograph: Rambert Archive © Alan Cunliffe

Hodiak’s repertory at Rambert included creating roles in the artistic director Norman Morrice’s Spindrift (1974) and the somewhat confusing and short-lived Isolde (1973), in which Hodiak was cast as both the reflection of King Mark and Morold. He also created roles in Manuel Alum’s Escaras (1974) and in Jonathan Taylor’s Almost an Echo (1974), which was danced to Darius Milhaud’s La Création du Monde. In this, Hodiak played a lad hanging around a Broadway theatre who dreams of becoming a star. After an Astaire and Rogers-style duet with Marilyn Williams (the star), the white tuxedo of his dream character disappears, and he returns to being a street urchin.

Hodiak particularly enjoyed working with the (then novice) choreographers Joseph Scoglio and Christopher Bruce. He featured in Scoglio’s Les Saltimbanques (1973), inspired by Pablo Picasso’s 1905 painting, in which his character had a notably stylised slouchy walk, and for Bruce he featured in the Trojan work There Was a Time (1973). He also appeared in the powerful …For These Who Die As Cattle (1972), its title from the opening line of Wilfred Owen’s poem Anthem for Doomed Youth.

Born Hodiak Hampden Sears in Georgetown, Guyana, as a child he emigrated to Britain in 1960 with his father, Eric Jones, a tailor, who died shortly after the move. Wanting to avoid association with his birth mother, he became Keith Hodiak Jones, later dropping the “Jones” for a more distinctive stage name. He was fortunate to be educated at Clissold Park school, Stoke Newington, in north London, where Lee Edwards, who put on shows by young people that were presented at Toynbee Hall and the Commonwealth Institute, spotted him and encouraged him to dance.

Hodiak in Almost an Echo, by Jonathan Taylor. Photograph: Alan Cunliffe/Rambert Archive

Recognising Hodiak’s potential, Edwards urged him to apply for the Arts Educational School, where his dance talent was nurtured by Eve Pettinger and where it was suggested Rambert might be a suitable company for his style of dance.

His first audition was unsuccessful so, after dancing for a season at Freiburg City Theatre in Germany (as Keith Jones), he took a year out to improve his technique, working with the former Pavlova ballerina Cleo Nordi and the choreographer Robert Cohan at the London School of Contemporary Dance. His effort paid off and in 1972 he joined Rambert.

After leaving the company, Hodiak moved into acting, musical theatre and modelling. He was in the London production of Bubbling Brown Sugar in 1977 and performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the musicals Saratoga (1978) and Trevor Nunn’s British premiere of the Moss Hart and George S Kaufman Once in a Lifetime (1979).

In 1978 Hodiak took on the role of one of the four members of the band Sam Spade and the Private Eyes in the Blake Edwards film The Revenge of the Pink Panther. He played supporting roles as police officers in John Landis’s horror comedy An American Werewolf in London (1981) and the marine Daddy DA in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987).

On television he was the Raston Warrior Robot in the 20th anniversary Doctor Who special The Five Doctors (1985), a role that benefited from his dance training and brought him a cult following. He also appeared in three episodes of Are You Being Served? (1985) and briefly in EastEnders (1992).

Hodiak had great respect for the teachers who inspired him and, towards the end of his career, he turned to teaching. He taught adult ballet classes, Sivananda yoga and tai chi, notably at Pineapple Dance Studios in Covent Garden.

He was committed to widening access to professional training and mentored young dancers, helping several Black students secure scholarships to the Rambert School, continuing the work of breaking barriers that had define his own career.

He is survived by a son, Donny.