Ballet Black at 20

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Ballet Black Say it Loud and Black Sun York Theatre Royal 11 Oct 2022 Lowry Salford 1 Dec 2022 20:00

I once attended an interview in which Cassa Pancho was asked about the early days of Ballet Black.  She had created the company's first ballet but did not think that she would ever make another. Happily, that has not turned out to be the case.  She and the dancers have given us Say It Loud, a glorious celebration of the company and its achievements over the last 20 years.  It is the first part of a double bill that has been touring the country since March.

In her programme note, Cassa Pancho divides the work into chapters as though it were a book, The first chapter consisted of voces populorum.  One that sticks in my memory is "Shouldn't all ballet should be like this". But there were more negative ones about the company's name, the ethnicity of its members and why it doesn't;t do more about knife crime.  My favourite chapter was Mthuthuzeli November.'s "Welcome to London" which he danced with panache.  That city may be expensive, congested, overpowering and for some even threatening but it's the company's home.  There was a change of mood with Lord Kitchener's "If you're brown".  But it was followed by hope: "We love ballet because ballet loves us back".

The second ballet, Gregory Maqoma's "Black Sun", was very different.   Only to be expected, perhaps, because, as Ebony Thomas explained, one of the strengths of Ballet Black is that "no two ballets are the same." Black Sun was more than ballet.  Indeed, it was more than theatre.  It was akin to an act of worship.   The climax of the piece started with drumming, followed by incantations from November and then cries, soft at first, then louder, from Isabela Coracy.   It was a moving experience.

I became a fan of Ballet Black even before I saw them on stage.   I was captivated by Sarah Kundi and Jade-Hale Christofi in Dépouillement. When I actually saw the company for the first time at the Bernie Grant Centre in Tottenham in 2013 I was enchanted. I am still under their spell nearly 10 years later. Every year Ballet Black seems to get better and better.   In my estimation, this was their best season yet.   I only wish I could have seen Mthuthuzeli dance Welcome to London in Stratford or the Barbican because I think the response of a London audience would have been ecstatic.

Every year that I have watched Ballet Black, Cira Robinson has been in the company.  She is one of my all time favourite ballerinas.   I admire her work very much.   Sadly Ballet Black's season at the Lowry will have been Cira Robinson's last with the company.   However, she is not leaving ballet and, even better, she is not leaving this country.  She has taken up an appointment as Artistic Director of Yorkshire Ballet Seminars (see Yorkshire Ballet Seminars Facebook page 1 July 2022).  I congratulate her and wish her every success.

The last time I saw Ballet Black on stage was just before the pandemic,  They have recruited four very promising young dancers since then:  Alexander Fedayiro, Taraja Hudson. Helga Paris-Morales and Rosanna Lindsey.  I saw some of them at the Lowry and was very impressed.   I wish them well.

Ballet Black will begin a new tour starting at the Barbican from 8 to 12 March 2022.   It will be a double bill entitled "Ballet Black Pioneers".  It will consist of Will Tuckett’s Then Or Now and Mthuthuzeli November’s By Whatever Means.   I am very much looking forward to it.

For a review of Ballet Black's 2022 season at the Barbican, see Joanna Goodman's 20 years of Ballet Black - double bill at the Barbican and currently on tour 4 April 2022,