Cassa Pancho's Ballet Black is a British ballet company. It was founded by Cassa Pancho in 2001 as a response to the lack of professional Black and Asian ballet dancers in the UK. The Company was established to provide dancers and students of black and Asian descent with inspiring opportunities in classical ballet.
In addition to the professional performing company, Ballet Black also has three BB Junior Ballet School locations, based in London, for ages 3 to 18. The classes are held in
Shepherd's Bush
Shepherd's Bush is a suburb of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan.
Although primarily residential in character, its ...
, West London, Marylebone and Stratford and the teachers include artistic director Cassa Pancho and Senior Artist Isabela Coracy. The junior school is a key part of the work of Ballet Black, and is essential to creating, building and sustaining the future of diversity in ballet. The company has made a list of actions resources available on their website so that other companies and dance schools can made active steps to become inclusive and anti-racist.
Members
In addition to company Founder, Artistic Director Cassa Pancho the ballet black founding members included Denzil Bailey (ballet master, dancer and choreographer), Celia Grannum Perarnaud (dancer), Sia Kpakiwa (Kiwa) (dancer), Florence Raja (née Kollie), Jake Nwogu (dancer), Gerrard Martin (dancer) and Frederic Claudel (dancer).
History
Ballet Black achieved charity status in 2004. Its patrons are
Thandiwe Newton
Melanie Thandiwe Newton ( ; born 6 November 1972), formerly credited as Thandie Newton ( ), is a British actress. She has received various awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award, and a BAFTA Award, as well as nominations for two Golden Globe ...
OBE and
Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE, and
Althea Efunshile is the chair of the trustees.
Arts Council England
Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council o ...
made Ballet Black a National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) for 2018-2022 and awarded them £880,000.
Ballet Black have been nominated for and have won numerous dance awards including
The Critics' Circle National Dance Awards,
Sky Arts
Sky Arts (originally launched as Artsworld) is a British free-to-air television channel offering 24 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, films, documentaries and music (such as opera perfor ...
, and
Oliviers. In the 2012 National Dance Awards (announced Jan 2013) they won the Grishko Award for the Best Independent Company,
and in the 2018 awards their dancer José Alves won Outstanding Male Dancer in Classical Performance, while Cathy Marston won Best Classical Choreography, both for work on ''The Suit''.
Other nominations included the company's Arthur Pita's nomination for the
Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance in 2014 for his choreography of ''A Dream Within A Midsummer Night's Dream'',
and the same piece receiving a nomination for the 2015 Sky Arts award for dance.
Ballet Black have featured in documentaries including ''
The South Bank Show'' in 2016 and
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002 's ''Danceworks''.
A collaboration with dance shoe company
Freed of London was announced in 2018. Freed added two new colours, "Ballet Bronze" and "Ballet Brown" to their range of
pointe shoe
A pointe shoe (, ), also referred to as a ''ballet shoe'', is a type of shoe worn by ballet dancers when performing pointe technique, pointe work. Pointe shoes were conceived in response to the desire for dancers to appear weightless and sylph-li ...
s.
Senior Artists Cira Robinson and Mthuthuzeli November danced as part of
Stormzy
Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr. (born 26 July 1993), known professionally as Stormzy, is an English-Ghanaian rapper, singer, and songwriter. In 2014, he gained attention on the UK underground music scene through his ''Wicked Skengman'' ...
's headlining act on the Pyramid stage at
Glastonbury Festival 2019.
See also
*
Ballet companies in the United Kingdom
References
External links
*
*
*Interviews on Radio 4's Woman's Hour
:
:
:{{cite web , title=Woman's Hour: Office Cleaners, Cassa Pancho, Jackie Kay , url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf6y , website=www.bbc.co.uk , accessdate=23 August 2020 , date=27 May 2020
Ballet companies in the United Kingdom
Ballet in London
2001 establishments in England
Race and society