The "D" Word

Author: Canuckguy
Source: Wikipedia
Copyright released by the author

In the foreword to the programme for this year's triple bill, Cassa Pancho, the founder and artistic director of Ballet Black writes:

"I am often asked why I started Ballet Black. I don't have a perfect answer, even after our sixteen years, but in short it is all about the D word, diversity. I believe diversity on stage inspires diversity at the beginning of the classical ballet food chain, in local ballet schools.  That in turn fuels the number of black and Asian students attending vocational school, which leads to more culturally diverse artists following a professional career in dance. From there, those diverse dancers can become teachers, choreographers, technicians, designers, managers, decision makers who will change the shape of dance. Finally, diversity on stage - and off - means the same thing for the audience, put it on your stage. But top down or ground up approaches are not effective on their own. Real diversity will only happen when you work in both directions at the same time, by giving a platform to professional dancers working across the globe today, whose very existence will inspire the tiny tree and four year olds to plié and skip for the first time in their local church hall."

Cassa is surely right. The diversification of which she writes is important not just for professionals, students and audiences from Africa, Asia and the African and Asian diasporas but for the future of dance on stage generally and ballet in particular as an art form and for everyone who loves that art regardless of his or her individual ethnicity.

Nearly three years ago to the day I answered an article by David Lister entitled Ballet Black is a wonderful company. But it's a shame on the arts that it still exists 7 March 2014 in which he wrote:

"Ballet Black has been delighting crowds and critics at the Royal Opera House this week. The company, founded in 2001 to create opportunities for dancers of black and Asian descent, has, according to our critic’s review, “never looked better”. They are good, so good that I want to pay them the ultimate and richly deserved accolade – they should be abolished."

In  David Lister's Post on Ballet Black 9 March 2014 I wrote:

"It is clear that Mr Lister abhors racism like all right thinking people. His article is no doubt written with the best of intentions but he is wrong. Ballet Black has never been more necessary than now. Not because black or South Asian dancers cannot get into other ballet companies as, clearly, they can and do. But because Ballet Black is claiming an art form that began in the courts of renaissance Italy and developed in imperial Russia for all cultures including (but by no means exclusively) kids from Bradford, Brixton and Moss Side."

The process of diversification to which Cassa refers has only just begun in the United Kingdon. Yes, there are fine dancers of African and Asian heritage in all the leading dance companies and there are also more children of African and Asian heritage in local dance and vocational ballet schools, but there is still a mountain to climb with audiences, even for the performances of Ballet Black.

In climbing that mountain we have to be very careful to avoid representing ballet as a fundamentally European art form in which African and Asian heritage artists and audiences are invited to participate because that is not how it is. It is more like a language that can be adapted by artists of any culture to express music, literature and thought from any source. An analogue of the diversification process. perhaps. is jazz. That came to the world (albeit indirectly) from Africa but was embraced not just by artists of European heritage but by those of other cultures (see Audio slideshow: Bombay's jazz age 27 Jan 2012 BBC website).

Unless the process of diversification accelerates ballet risks becoming a predominately white, elitist museum piece and that would be a tragedy for everybody and a betrayal of a beautiful art form. The process will not be complete even when every company and every dance school in the UK becomes representative of the population as a whole because diversification is an international imperative. That is one of the reasons why Ballet Black and companies with a similar mission in this country and abroad are so precious and so necessary.

Changing the subject, I was at the last night of Ballet Black's Barbican season yesterday and I have never been more delighted.  At the risk of Cassa's gentle reprimand "Well you always say that, don't you" I repeat what I have said many times in this blog, Ballet Black have never danced better. Everybody around me in the auditorium (remember, this is stuffy old London - not Amsterdam) leapt to their feet.  The applause was deafening. I will review last night, of course, but the lead review will come from the distinguished journalist, Joanna Goodman. We shall also publish a splendid report by David Murley of last week's Little Red Riding Hood workshop by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.

Altogether, we have a lot of good things to say about Ballet Black and for once I won't be the only one saying them.

David Lister's Post on Ballet Black

I had intended to leave ballet alone this week. After all I have seen quite a lot of it lately - Ballet West's Swan Lake on 1 March, Matthew Bourne's on the 4th and Northern Ballet's Cleopatra on the 6th - and I have also written about Peter Darrell today. But I really must respond to David Lister's article "Ballet Black is a wonderful company. But it's a shame on the arts that it still exists"  7 March 2014 Independent Voices.

In that article Mr Lister wrote:

"Ballet Black has been delighting crowds and critics at the Royal Opera House this week. The company, founded in 2001 to create opportunities for dancers of black and Asian descent, has, according to our critic’s review, “never looked better”. They are good, so good that I want to pay them the ultimate and richly deserved accolade – they should be abolished."

He continued that Ballet Black's website states 

“Our ultimate goal is to see a fundamental change in the number of black and Asian dancers in mainstream ballet companies, making Ballet Black wonderfully unnecessary.”

And concluded

"Well, I’d say that after the reviews that this week’s performances achieved, it already is wonderfully unnecessary. If there is evidence that the big companies really are not recruiting talented black and Asian dancers, then it is imperative that we are given the evidence, and that the heads of these mainstream, and indeed national, companies are forced to explain themselves in public. The danger is that Ballet Black, understandably delighted with public and critical reaction, will strive less to make themselves unnecessary."

It is clear that Mr Lister abhors racism like all right thinking people. His article is no doubt written with the best of intentions but he is wrong. Ballet Black has never been more necessary than now. Not because black or South Asian dancers cannot get into other ballet companies as, clearly, they can and do. But because Ballet Black is claiming an art form that began in the courts of renaissance Italy and developed in imperial Russia for all cultures including (but by no means exclusively) kids from Bradford, Brixton and Moss Side.

The company is doing that in two ways. First, by bringing new audiences to the ballet.  I have seen Ballet Black three times at the Linbury, Leeds and Tottenham.  At the Linbury and Leeds there were perhaps a few more folk of African or South Asian heritage in the audience than one might see for a performance by the Royal Ballet or Northern Ballet but it was very much the same ballet going crowd. At the Bernie Grant Arts Centre there were very many more folk of African and South Asian heritage and from some of the conversations that I overheard in the queue for the loo and in the Blooming Scent Café it seems that it was for many their first experience of ballet. I might add that Ballet Black brings ballet not just to districts like Tottenham where there are many people of African and South Asian heritage but to places like Exeter, Southport and Guildford where there and relatively few.

The second way in which Ballet Black is claiming ballet for all cultures is through its school. That school like every other good ballet school in the UK is open to kids of all races, cultures and nationalities but it is clear from the photo on the website that a high proportion of its children are of African and Afro-Caribbean heritage. Why do such kids not audition for White Lodge, Elmhurst, the Northern Ballet Academy or some of the other fine schools of the country? Well some of them do but without dancers like Cira Robinson and Isabela Coracy to show those children and their parents that it is possible for folk who look like them to achieve excellence in ballet not to mention the inspiration of the wonderful Cassa Pancho they would do so in far fewer numbers.

I can testify from my own experience how important that is. Although I am white I was married to a Sierra Leonean for 28 years. During the vicious civil war we looked after a young Sierra Leonean girl who was fortunate enough to be born in London and could therefore take refuge in this country. That young girl is the nearest I have to a daughter and her 3 year old child is the nearest I have to a grandson. I love both of them to bits. The boy has a beautifully expressive face and in his play he has shown signs that suggest that he may have a talent for ballet. I suggested to his mum that we ought to take him to a ballet teacher. She replied by asking me whether ballet was really for Africans. I might add that she had already seen quite a lot of ballet by companies like the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet and loves the art. I answered her by taking her to the performance of Ballet Black that I reviewed on the 26 Feb. Having seen Ballet Black she has agreed to let me take the little boy to the Peacock on 13 April to see My First Ballet: Coppélia. If he likes the show she will let me take her boy to a mini-mover or baby ballet class and we shall see how he gets on from there.

For most of this article I have justified Ballet Black for their role in generating new audiences and education but there is an artistic reason why the company will never be wonderfully unnecessary. There are some ballets that people of African heritage can do particularly well either because the are based on African or Afro-Caribbean music or legend or simply because of features of their physique or countenance. That is why companies like Alvin Ailey and the Dance Theatre of Harlem continue to thrive in the USA. That is why there will always be a need for a company like Ballet Black in this country.

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