Last Updated on March 9, 2026
A striking double bill with a South African pedigree from Europe’s first black professional neoclassical ballet company, celebrating their 25th anniversary
4.0 out of 5.0 starsDance is one of the most primal human urges, born out of a combination of raw emotion, atavistic response to rhythmic sounds and the urge of a community to move as one. There is no civilisation on earth that does not have its own form of dance. And yet, from these roots, these basic foot-stomping emotive movements have evolved classical ballet – an art form that can hardly be less primal and more stylised in terms of costumes and techniques. The primary intention of South African dancer and choreographer Mthuthuzeli November was not perhaps the reconnection of classical ballet with its roots, but this is in effect what his remarkable piece Ingoma achieves – a striking melange of African dance and neoclassical ballet performed by a unique company.
Performing a double bill including Ingoma, Ballet Black made a much-anticipated return to The Linbury at the Royal Opera House this week. Ballet Black at 25 celebrates a milestone anniversary of Europe’s first black professional neoclassical Ballet company, founded by Cassa Pancho MBE in 2001. With the bold motto of ‘Change not Trend’, the pioneering company’s mission is primarily to showcase diversity on stage and promote the inclusion of Black and Asian dancers and choreographers. They bring to the stage a new inclusivity for an essentially Eurocentric art form and present diverse narratives that resonate with a contemporary audience. But they also work tirelessly to diversify the creative landscape behind the scenes by supporting female choreographers and collaborating with costume makers, writers, poets, and musicians from a variety of backgrounds.
Ballet Black at 25 consists of two distinct works that both address the concept and power of the collective, albeit in very different ways. The first piece in the double bill is …all towards hope, a new commission this year from choreographer Hope Boykin with an original jazz-based score from Bill Laurance. The piece opens with the company swaying gently together as a group to the sound of a drum like a heartbeat, accompanied by spoken text written and recorded by Boykin herself. As the dancers fill the stage with movement, the words invite the audience to reflect on what it might mean, and require, to move together towards hope – a question that seems apposite in the current climate. Diaphanous costumes (by Jessica Cabassa) in shades of bronze and brown ripple as the company expands and then reforms, like a spring uncoiled and recoiling. Duos and sometimes trios separate themselves momentarily but always return to the collective. Dancers repeatedly break the fourth wall and gaze intently into the audience, sometimes confrontationally, sometimes conspiratorially, as if inviting us into their togetherness. There is an unusual soundless pas de deux between dancers Isabela Coracy and Acaoã De Castro, as well as a powerful solo by Coracy before a joyful final scene with the full company, reminiscent of a celebratory tribal dance.
But the highlight for me was Ingoma, the choreographic debut of former Ballet Black dancer South African Mthuthuzeli November. November grew up dancing to kwaito music on the streets of Zolani (a suburb of Ashton) in the Western Cape. In his own words, he has naturally evolved a choreographic style that blends classical technique with “our own traditional ways of dancing” – African dance and singing. The ingoma is a Zulu war or ceremonial dance, widely recognised for its powerful stomping, dramatic high kicks and synchronised shouts. Much like the Maori haka, it is associated with warrior rituals but also performed during festivals, embodying as it does a combination of kinship, discipline and masculine identity. The piece, in its own way, also explores the power of the collective – it was inspired by various seminal strikes by black South African miners. This includes the 1946 strike, which saw nine miners killed by police and over 1,200 injured (and led to the founding of the anti-apartheid movement); and the Marikana massacre in 2012, when police opened fire on striking miners, killing 34 strikers and injuring many more.
Ingoma is rich in imagery, movements and rhythms that will find familiarity and resonate with South Africans. It opens with a group of men entering the darkened stage wearing headlamps and gumboots, carrying mining pickaxes. The only light initially comes from their lamps, sometimes beaming out into the audience; sometimes illuminating each other; eventually forming a small circle of light as they sit together in silent rest. It evokes the striking images of miners produced by photographer Margaret Bourke-White in 1950 for LIFE magazine. Illuminated and isolated by a single spotlight, South African Bhungane Mehlomakulu stands like a Cecil Skotnes woodcut made flesh. After a solo rich in both power and vulnerability, made all the more atmospheric by an accompanying recording of a prayer in isiXhosa, he is joined by his wife (Taraja Hudson) for a slow-burning and emotionally powerful duet. It is a study in fluid tenderness and spiky desperation. She both supports and seems to plead with him, seeking solace in his embrace, but ultimately, he has to rejoin his fellow miners for their hard physical labour in harrowing conditions. They lunge forcefully in unison, wielding their pickaxes, bare-chested and wearing gumboots rather than traditional ballet shoes. There is a stylised, stomping gumboot dance – a dance that the miners developed as a rhythmic coded communication in the tunnels where talking was strictly forbidden. It is primal and visceral, full of hypnotic rhythms and synchronised shouts. We get a sense of the miners’ exhaustion and exasperation as they dance, sweat-slicked and panting, with their fists raised in the black power salute.
Focus then switches to the women, whose strength played a central role in the anti-apartheid struggle, and their distress as they dance together. Hands flutter like frightened birds while arms flail in anguish, even as they dance on pointe. These are movements of anger and defiance – impassioned and anguished yet controlled and dignified. Their symbolic raised fists that initially look like defiance, speed up to become a desperate beating at the air as if to escape their circumstances. Later, the men and women dance in unison as they protest against the status quo to a soundtrack of call-and-response chants of the anti-apartheid slogan “Amandla! Awethu!” (power is ours). Defiant sprints across the stage signify the determination of unarmed workers in the face of armed policemen. But we get a sense of the futility of these gestures as one by one they fall as they are shot. Helga Paris-Morales and Isabela Coracy each have an emotional solo surrounded by the slumped bodies of their husbands and friends. But it is the riveting Coracy that steals the show with a vulnerable yet ultimately resilient performance, tears streaming down her otherwise emotionless face as she gazes out into the audience.
Lighting design (by David Plater) is outstanding and gives shape and nuance to an otherwise bare stage. From the bank of spotlights that backlight the full company as they dance, to the isolating spotlight for solos, to the atmospheric recreation of a darkened mine shaft with headlamps, his work is brilliant. The original score (by Peter Johnson) is appropriately dramatic, giving voice both to tenderness, distress and defiance at various points. But it is the dancers who impress the most. Although the entire company is excellent, Isabela Coracy stood out as having a towering stage presence and moves with a powerful grace. Megan Chiu impressed with her incredibly fast footwork and precise, graceful dancing. Among the men, lithe-limbed Acaoã De Castro brilliantly fuses classical training with less formal dance elements. And Bhungane Mehlomakulu is mesmerising in his fluid and sinuous upper body movements. It is striking and enjoyable throughout how much of each dancer’s individual personality is allowed to shine through.
Ultimately, Ingoma chooses to tell the story of South African mine workers not through the lens of the larger socio-political forces at work at the time but on a human scale through the eyes of individuals – their striving, suffering, relationships and resilience. What it lacks in a strong narrative arc, it more than makes up for in striking imagery and emotional heft. Black miners and their communities are not usually the subject matter of ballet productions, but November and Ballet Black give powerful, poignant life to their stories. It is not hard to see why Ingoma won both the 2020 Olivier Award and the Black British Theatre Award for Best Dance Production.
Ballet Black at 25 provides an excellent opportunity to discover new works and unfamiliar dancers, and to bring into the theatre an audience that might otherwise think that ballet has no relevance to them. But even leaving such a huge benefit aside, it is a visually arresting and emotionally resonant show, beautifully danced and staged. Cassa Pancho has said about the company’s work: “[whatever] the subject… I hope we will always put on a show that makes you think, feel and want to return again and again.” Ballet Black at 25 definitely does all of that.
Ballet Black at 25 is sold out at the Linbury Theatre, 3-7 March, but will be on a national 25th anniversary tour until summer 2026 – see dates and tickets.
Linbury Theatre
Royal Opera House
35-36 Bow St
London
WC2E 7AU
Box office tel. 020 7304 4000 or boxoffice@roh.org.uk
Check out our London Dance Previews – January to July 2026
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