Breaking barriers, building repertoire: 25 years of Ballet Black

As I enter The Church of the Holy Innocents in Hammersmith, Ballet Black’s current home, I am struck by the stunning, gothic interior of the open plan office. It’s an extraordinary building with a rehearsal studio upstairs, all the requisite amenities and in spite of the high arched ceilings, it feels welcoming and warm. I’m here to talk to Cassa Pancho, Ballet Black’s founding Artistic Director, and two of her senior artists, Isabela Coracy and Ebony Thomas, who are celebrating the company’s 25th anniversary. 

Pancho was just 21 when she started the company in 2001. “I wasn’t really aware of what it would actually take. I think I was very naïve,” she reflects. “If I’d had any idea of how much work it would be, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but each step has been a surprise. I learned how to do it but I’m still not sure I really know how to do it.”

Despite the huge complexity of establishing a completely new ballet company, unbelievably, after only one year, she also set up a school. “Yes, after finding my dancers, I thought we would need to have a school. It has the same ethos as the company, with role models teaching them.” Pancho was teaching ballet classes at a nursery during the week to pay for rehearsing dancers at the weekend, and asked parents if they would bring their kids if she started a school.

“They came to my first church hall in Shepherds Bush,” Pancho says. “Their siblings and their friends came to my next class. I kept building up and every few months I would add another class. Now I think we have 20 classes a week and about 250 kids coming to our classes.”

I wonder if the idea was to feed the company eventually? She grins broadly. “This year we have our first student in the company who has come through the school. It’s taken 25 years!” Pancho confesses that it’s tremendously exciting. “I’m trying not to put pressure on her but she’s very good! She’s quite ‘chill’ but I have to reign myself in. Every time I see her dance, I have to tell myself to calm down!”

It was 12 years before the Arts Council took notice of the company. “I made the first request for money in 2003 and had my first rejection letter. I was told Ballet Black was not value for money,” she tells me. “We could only really plan three months ahead. It wasn’t until 2018 that we got the NPO grant. We were a weekend Ballet Black, just trying to make it work.”

I’m keen to know how much Dance Theatre of Harlem inspired her. Her face lights up: “Hugely inspirational. Everyone says to me, ‘what about Ailey?’, but that’s a contemporary company. There was nowhere in this country for Black classical dancers to be hired. It was suggested to me that they go and dance with Dance Theatre of Harlem – as if every Black person trained in ballet can only go to one place!”

I’m curious to know if the company came across a lot of opposition or resistance. Choking with laughter on her water, Ebony Thomas chimes in with an emphatic, “YES!” Pancho explains further: “I was ethnic, unknown, not a famous ballet person, a graduate. Honestly it was embarrassing the way people spoke to me for the first ten years. I didn’t get offended, I just thought I have to pay my dues.” The more opposition they encountered, “the more I stopped asking outside people. None of them had started companies. Most of the people who had founded their own companies were dead. There wasn’t anyone to ask.”

“In the early days,” Pancho continues, “there were some positive remarks, but often with patronising comments like ‘they’re really great for Black dancers’ or ‘good for a heritage troupe’.” She is fiercely protective of her dancers. “If someone wants to interview Ebony or Bela,” Pancho says, “the first thing they want to know is what racism they’ve experienced. Why don’t they want to talk about them being such amazing dancers? Everyone’s experience is different. One dancer might say they’ve never experienced racism, another might say they’ve experienced nothing but racism. It’s a very personal experience for each of us.”

Pancho has commissioned more than 70 new dance works for the company. “I knew immediately that we wouldn’t be able to do excerpts of Swan Lake or Giselle. It would have been a really bad way to start a company: only six or eight dancers, no set, no tutus, no money, with recorded music and in the same city as The Royal Ballet and ENB. Out of necessity I had to get people to create for the dancers that we had. Denzil Bailey, Liam Scarlett, Irek Mukhamedov.” 

She sets the scene: “All these people wanted to create works because they didn’t have the ear of the person they were working for at the time. Also you can’t go from nothing, straight to creating for the main stage of the Opera House.” But soon, Deborah Bull invited Ballet Black to work at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre. “Lots of people wanted to create for dancers who were hungry to do new work, plus it was at the Opera House and seen by critics. Deborah Bull was our fairy godmother!”

Coracy won an Olivier Award in 2024 for her portrayal of Nina Simone in Mthuthuzeli November’s Nina: By Whatever Means. She tells me, “In Brazil they approached me to talk about the Olivier Awards. They wanted to ask me about winning it because I’m Black. That’s not why I won the award.” Pancho responds, “No dancer should have to talk about this. It’s too big.” Thomas interjects, “It’s the difference between it not existing and you not experiencing it. For example, I have not experienced it, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Two totally different things.”

Thomas, who trained at Elmhurst, is thrilled to part of the company. He tells me, “The longer I’ve been here, the more I’ve realised how important Ballet Black is and what a privilege it is to dance here.” It wasn’t always so easy. Before graduating, he explains, “I was injured with bilateral stress fractures. The whole of my graduate year, I was focused on getting fit again. I watched my friends graduate. I was intent upon getting a job and I almost missed the following round of auditions. I took company classes in Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia. Then I went to Ballet Black. Over two days, I learnt a bit of rep and got offered the contract!” he beams.

We discuss the importance of nurturing the individual. Pancho is particularly adept at developing talent. I mention November’s international success as a choreographer. She modestly responds by saying, “It’s not to do with us, it’s his talent. Ballet Black was a springboard.” She continues, “I think if I was running ENB it wouldn’t be possible because there are so many dancers. We’re now up to 11 dancers but I really take a personal approach to each. I took Ebony on as an apprentice and I threw him into a very difficult Martin Lawrance ballet, partnering him with Bela. He was already a good partner but he learned a lot from that. It gave me the confidence to give him more.”

We move on to the subject of acting, and the big challenge of narrative ballets. “It’s a lot of commitment, in every role,” Coracy says, an especially good dance actress. “With every character you have to build, I have to work to ‘complete’ the character. The best moment for me is when you’re creating a character and we have a rehearsal just about that. We really go deep into the story, talk about the book, the storyline, and that’s the moment when we get to settle on when we go for the dancing or the acting.” Pancho explains, “In My Sister, The Serial Killer, we got to know why she was the way she was… it all hinged on the acting making sense. I had to cut some things, fill in the blanks and still make it plausible. Their acting carries the story, the whole arc comes down to the three leads.” 

Ballet Black is about to present a world premiere by Hope Boykin. “She’s very direct,” Thomas explains. “She prefaced her time with us about how she works. She said, ‘I don’t want to waste your time and if something isn’t right, I’m just going to say so. It’s not to offend you and I don’t want to upset you. It’s just not what I’m looking for’.” Thomas elaborates, “It’s not a criticism. She’s also extremely funny. I was constantly cracking up. She has so many ‘Hope-isms’ and anecdotes. She kept the rehearsal space alive.” Pancho adds, “She dropped a lot of Judith Jamieson wisdom. She worked closely with Ailey and Jamieson.”

Thomas concludes, “You could debate and argue why there is such an imbalance in the ballet world but the more Black, mixed-race and Asian dancers you see on stage, the more you’re going to attract younger dancers and audiences because they can relate to what they’re seeing.” Coracy finishes with, “It’s an honour to be here. Being with the company for 12 years, creating so many pieces. And also talking about being role models, and I hope we will all be seen, wherever we are dancing.”

Ballet Black celebrates 25 years at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre from 3rd–7th March.

See upcoming events in Ballet Black’s 25th anniversary season.

More information on Ballet Black.