A landmark double bill that looks back and forward with equal grace: a joyous, fitting tribute to a quarter-century of Ballet Black
“No two ballets are alike,” writes Cassa Pancho in the programme notes, and for 25 years Ballet Black has made that its working principle. Its anniversary double bill at Sadler’s Wells tests it by pairing a joyful new commission with a harrowing award-winner. The contrast shows the company’s range.
The evening opens with …all towards hope., the UK choreographic debut of Alvin Ailey alumna Hope Boykin. Her own recorded text runs through it, a string of questions (“Who is right? The one who loves? The one who helps?”) that build to the insistence that “we must move toward hope.” The message is simple and sincerely meant, and the piece fits it. Boykin’s movement is built on contrast. Unison passages, including a precise duet for Helga Paris-Morales and Megan Chiu, give way to clusters of dancers moving independently. Lifts are well judged and placed, and the choreography sits comfortably on a ballet company’s technique. Isabela Coracy is a standout, drawing the eye without ever pulling focus from the ensemble.
Jessica Cabassa’s draped costumes in rust, brown and gold flow with every turn. Bill Laurance’s score moves easily between moods and eventually into jazz, and David Plater’s lighting washes each section out in blue. That device gives the piece its structure but also its main flaw. Every fade-out stops the momentum, and the work can feel start-stop. Each section is lovely, but better flow between them would let the piece build. Two images stay in the mind. In one, the company stands in a line facing the wings, lit by a single floodlight, while a lone dancer runs towards them. In the other, a male dancer performs without music, with only his footfalls and breathing in the silent theatre. When the jazz kicks in and the piece becomes a party, it feels earned. The joy has been there throughout.
Ingoma takes us somewhere much darker. The Olivier Award-winning debut of former company dancer Mthuthuzeli November, it is inspired by the 1946 miners’ strike in South Africa. It opens in blackness, with the dancers’ head torches cutting through it. November builds his piece on bold gestural motifs. Dancers beat their chests like a racing heartbeat and flutter splayed fingers. In the most effective sequence, hunched miners slap their boots and turn their bodies into drums. Later, a lone miner is lit from behind, one man set against the weight of the system.
Ingoma does not stay underground. The women in the miners’ lives are given equal weight, and the work is richer for showing the suffering and resilience of a whole community. The acting is as strong as the dancing. Paris-Morales and Taraja Hudson each deliver solos of real dramatic intensity, and the ensemble commits fully to the piece’s emotional weight.
The programme moves from celebration to grief, and the transition works because both pieces are about people holding together. Boykin’s commission shows a company with a warm, confident present, and Ingoma shows what it can do with something harder. A stop-start structure in the new work is a small complaint against an evening this accomplished. Ballet Black at 25 is a company with a clear sense of identity and range, and I look forward to seeing where it goes next.