The Royal Ballet, Spring Draft Works/Joseph Toonga

• Insights: Joseph Toonga. Linbury Theatre, Friday 8 April at 7:30pm. Tickets £20. Dur.: 1 hour 30 mins approx.

Every year The Royal Ballet offers audiences a couple of opportunities to get acquainted with the work of company dancers who are beginning to try their hand at choreography. This season, Covid led to the postponement of the winter edition, but Spring Draft Works is going ahead as scheduled.

As well, The Royal Ballet is showcasing the work of its newest emerging choreographer, Joseph Toonga, appointed in September 2021.

The Draft Works series normally includes a mix of budding choreographers at varied stages of their careers, their work performed by colleagues, some very young, who cherish the opportunity to stand out from the crowd. So, for example, a draft work by artist Stanilaw Węgrzyn is danced by Prix de Lausanne apprentice Marco Masciari and artist Sumina Sasaki.

Marco Masciari and Sumina Sasaki in Draft Work by Stanilaw Węgrzyn. Photo: Dancers Diary
Stanilaw Węgrzyn features in the coming Spring Draft Works, alongside Ashley Dean, Joshua Junker, Matthew Ball and Marcelino Sambé. We are particularly curious about Sambé's work: this wonderful dancer used the opportunity of lockdown to choreograph and film some short dances, each built on the extraordinary facility of his body and the freedom to evoke feelings of particular importance to him, including his own African ancestry.

Here's one of those works:

Spring Draft Works will also include a short piece from Joseph Toonga, surely an appetiser for the full Toonga programme that follows two days later.

Joseph Toonga by The Other Richard
With his own company Just Us Dance Theatre, Joseph Toonga will perform Born to Manifest, part of a hip-hop dance-theatre trilogy that illuminates the experiences of young Black British men. The piece is set to an original score by Boy Blue co-founder and host Michael 'Mickey j' Asante.

In a special edition of the Insight series the following evening Joseph Toonga will sit down with The Royal Ballet resident choreographer Wayne McGregor, who mentors the emerging choreographer role, for what will surely by a fascinating discussion on the choreographer's work and methods, and the ins and outs of working with dancers of The Royal Ballet. The Insight will include a performance of Born to Protest, the sequel to Born to Manifest. This piece seeks to dispel the prejudices surrounding Black men to search for the fragility and vulnerability hiding behind the facade.