Black Black, Heroes, Linbury Theatre

Ballet Black returns to the ROH Linbury Theatre with its latest double bill, first seen at the Barbican earlier this year. Below is Culture Whisper's ★★★★★ review of the show on its Barbican premiere.

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Small it maybe, but Ballet Black, a company for dancers of African and Asian descent founded 22 years ago by the indomitable Cassa Pancho, has never lacked for ambition; and from even those cash-strapped early days Pancho has made a point of commissioning new, ground-breaking work.

Heroes, Ballet Black’s latest double bill, continues the trend, with a world premiere by Sophie Laplane and the radical re-working of an earlier work by Ballet Black’s own dancer and choreographer Mthuthuzeli November.

The Franco-British Laplane, formerly a dancer with Scottish Ballet and now its choreographer-in-residence, is a highly original dance maker, full of daring ideas. If At First, her piece for Ballet Black, is heavy on concept; and if not all of it translates easily into dance narrative, it’s never less than interesting and the dancers attack it with gusto, albeit with varying degrees of technical proficiency.

Inspired by a set of paintings by the late American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat entitled Eroica, which explores the concept of heroism, If At First is a series of vignettes where the white-clad dancers vie for a crown, a symbol perhaps of heroism or personal fulfilment.

It starts with a solo by Isabella Coracy, now the company doyenne, striving for a crown which hangs over the stage to a sedate Beethoven-inspired piece of music by Olivia Belli. At the last moment, the crown is taken from her as the music abruptly changes to fast-moving heavy percussion and the remaining eight dancers burst onto the stage.

From then on, sections where varying combinations of dancers conquer the crown, alternate with febrile interludes where the top prize is snatched away again by the ensemble. Particularly effective is the solo section for the eye-catching Brazilian newcomer Acaoã de Castro, danced to a snatch of Beethoven's 'Eroica' symphony .

Mthuthuzeli November’s 2021 piece The Waiting Game was a near perfect absurdist piece, short, tightly-knit and punchy. Now, heedless of the useful advice ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, November has opted for a radical remake.

The reworked The Waiting Game is longer and looser and involves much wheeling around the stage of the key prop: a three-sided box framing a see-through door. Full disclosure: dancers pushing props around is one of my pet hates and here it got in the way of my enjoyment of the piece.

The excellent Ebony Thomas (the company’s sole British dancer) is a man overwhelmed by the pointlessness of his existence. Anonymous in his drab overcoat, his deeply expressive body reaches out, then curls up as he is haunted by oppressive thoughts spoken in dull voice over, and embodied in the physical presence of Isabella Coracy and the remaining cast.

Finally, or as a sign announces, ‘a long long time later,’ everybody dons silver spangly jackets, gold for Thomas, and the whole company breaks into a vibrant, contagious Broadway-style routine. It may be a narrative non-sequitur, but it’s danced with such panache it closes the evening on a high.