{"id":385113,"date":"2021-07-28T07:52:40","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T11:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/formnutrition.com\/us\/?p=385113"},"modified":"2021-07-28T07:52:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T11:52:40","slug":"how-ballet-black-is-making-classical-dance-more-diverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formnutrition.com\/us\/inform\/how-ballet-black-is-making-classical-dance-more-diverse\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballet Black: The Company on a Mission To Make the World of Classical Dance More Diverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2001, when British-Trinidadian dancer Cassa Pancho started Ballet Black<\/a>, no Black women were working professionally as dancers in classical ballet in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like it wasn\u2019t something that caused concern in ballet companies at that time. All the leaders and decision-makers were Caucasian, so they were looking at everything through a lens of their own ethnic makeup,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

As a 21-year-old mixed-raced graduate of the Royal College of Dance, Pancho forgoed auditioning for a company, instead founding Ballet Black to give much-needed opportunities to dancers of Black and Asian descent.<\/p>\n

Since then, the company of Pancho and eight toured nationally and internationally, and two of its dancers even performed on stage at Stormzy\u2019s legendary Glastonbury performance in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It took time for the dance world to sit up and take note of Ballet Black though. \u201cAt the beginning, it was just me and a group of friends running a ballet class, which turned into choreography, and then came the performances. I was young, but I was just doing it at my own pace, so I learned everything as I went along.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t get Arts Council funding until 2013, so I raised all the money privately to get us going. I don\u2019t think we were really noticed by a lot of people for the first nine years until we won an award at the National Dance Awards in 2010. By that point, we had started to commission lots of new works from different choreographers, so we became known as a creative incubator; if you wanted to make ballet and have it shown at a venue like the Royal Opera House, you came to us.\u201d<\/p>\n