Ballet Black makes Sadler’s Wells debut with SHADOWS

Following a successful UK tour, Ballet Black bring their stylish double bill to London’s leading dance stage.

A first for Sadler’s Wells

Cassa Pancho’s Ballet Black will make its main stage debut at Sadler’s Wells this November with SHADOWS, a double bill first seen earlier this year on tour. The four-night run, from 26 to 29 November, represents both a milestone for the company and a continuation of work we at theQR have already admired.

For over two decades Ballet Black has been reshaping the British ballet landscape, commissioning more than 70 new works and creating a platform for dancers and choreographers of Black and Asian descent. The Sadler’s Wells season signals not a change of direction but a recognition of that sustained record. As Pancho put it in announcing the run: “There is an ongoing discussion about new and diverse voices in ballet and where they might come from; the answer is Ballet Black! It takes an organisation such as ours to lead on this type of work, and we have been doing so, quietly but successfully, for the past 24 years.”

A double bill of contrasts

SHADOWS pairs two contrasting works: Chanel DaSilva’s A Shadow Work and Pancho’s adaptation of Oyinkan Braithwaite’s bestselling novel My Sister, The Serial Killer.

“There is an ongoing discussion about new and diverse voices in ballet and where they might come from; the answer is Ballet Black!”

Cassa Pancho

DaSilva’s contribution, her first UK commission, draws on the therapeutic practice of “shadow work” to chart a journey of self-acceptance. A solitary figure, danced by Taraja Hudson, encounters shadows embodied by the ensemble — figures that menace, challenge, and console in turn. The choreography shifts from staccato to fluid, tracing a non-linear journey that is engrossing, sometimes playful, and always watchful of the inner struggle. In Edinburgh, I noted Hudson’s central performance, alive with “anxiety-riddled hand twitches [and] the clasped hands of prayer,” and found the work both accessible and thought-provoking, even if its forty-minute span risked feeling extended.

Helga Paris
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M
orales & Isabela Coracy. Photography
by ASH

Pancho’s My Sister, The Serial Killer turns Braithwaite’s comic-noir thriller into a sharply entertaining dance-theatre hybrid. It combines ballet, modern and jazz with Tom Harrold’s groovy score, augmented by blasts of Toots and the Maytals and Fela Kútì. At its centre, Isabela Coracy’s Korede and Helga Paris Morales’s Ayoola play out a sibling dynamic that is by turns tense, comic and morally fraught. Highlights include the sly opening, which shows the sisters disposing of a body with practised ease, and a funky house party sequence that recalled Kyle Abraham’s An Untitled Love. Reviewing the piece in May, I called it “a hugely entertaining success.”

Critical reception and wider context

That SHADOWS is the bill chosen for Ballet Black’s Sadler’s Wells debut feels telling. Both pieces embody the company’s instinct for narrative experimentation: one abstract yet rooted in personal psychology, the other a bold move into literary adaptation. Together they reflect Ballet Black’s commitment to “story first,” a direction I remarked on in May as a potentially significant turn for the company’s repertoire.

The move also situates Ballet Black within the wider ecology of Sadler’s Wells, whose Artistic Director Sir Alistair Spalding welcomed the collaboration: “For almost twenty-five years, Ballet Black and Cassa Pancho have transformed ballet and are at the forefront of redefining dance for a new generation. This double bill … will undoubtedly appeal to a wide range of our audience, and this is just the beginning of a very exciting, fruitful relationship between Sadler’s Wells and Ballet Black.”

Looking ahead

The Sadler’s Wells run of SHADOWS will last one hour and fifty minutes, including an interval, with a BSL-interpreted post-show talk scheduled for 27 November. Tickets start at £15.

For Ballet Black, the run is both a recognition of what has been achieved and a platform for what might come next. Our May review concluded: “All in all, SHADOWS is another fine offering from Ballet Black, who continue to be open to new ideas and fresh directions. It will be fascinating to see where this ‘story first’ approach may take them in future.”

“For almost twenty-five years, Ballet Black and Cassa Pancho have transformed ballet and are at the forefront of redefining dance for a new generation.”

Sir Alistair Spalding

That future now includes Sadler’s Wells — a stage that both affirms Ballet Black’s standing and gives its work another national platform. For a company founded in 2001 with the aim of changing who and what ballet could represent, the November season is a natural next step.