Films
Is it necessary for me to write obliquely about the situation? Is that what you would have me do?
Then Or Now, poetry by Adrienne Rich - Dark Fields of the Republic, Poems: 1991-1995
Then or Now is a powerful classical ballet set against the backdrop of Adrienne Rich’s poetry and accompanied by violin. William Tuckett’s ‘spellbinding’ ★★★★ (The Guardian) choreography explores the joys of submitting to the freedom of guilt through a series of movements.
We are living through times where every action we take - responding to a call to arms, deciding to remain passive - has become a political act. Small or large, personal or public, our actions seem to hold more weight than before. Creating work for Ballet Black in this climate felt very different to previous collaborations; still exciting, but with great responsibility. Whose story should the dancers be telling in a time of such political and social change?
Having worked with poetry as a ‘spoken score’ for a while, I asked Fiona’s help in finding a poet whose work spoke to this narrative conundrum. On reading Adrienne Rich’s Dark Fields of The Republic, I was (and remain), overwhelmed by her ability to call the reader to action; her rejection of apathy, injustice and oppression; her reasoning that love is all – be it romantic, social or political. Specific yet open, Rich provides space for both the reader and the dancer.
In parallel, I had been listening to Daniel’s recording of the Von Biber Passacaglia, and thinking its ‘slippy’ structure, which makes it feel in the moment and improvised, would be wonderful to create to. Daniel later revealed that Biber did indeed intend the player to be actively involved in the piece; to improvise and bring themselves to it as an artist.
Finally, combining the poems, Daniel, and the voices of Natasha, Hafsah and Michael, our sound engineer Ian created a structure and soundtrack, that enabled me to make this piece with Yuki and David.
I remain immensely grateful to this hugely creative, creative team, Ballet Black, and particularly the Adrienne Rich Estate for their wholehearted support of this project.
Will Tuckett
From the Director of Poetry, Fiona L Bennett
We go to poetry because we believe it has something to do with us. We also go to poetry to experience the not me, enter a field of vision we could not otherwise apprehend… Someone writing a poem believes in, depends on, a delicate vibrating range of difference, that an ‘I’ can become a ‘we’ without extinguishing others, that a partly common language exists to which strangers can bring their own heartbeat, memories, images. A language that itself has learned from the heartbeat, memories, images of strangers.
Adrienne Rich, from What is Found There, Notebooks On Poetry And Politics, 1994
Adrienne Rich is one of the greatest modern poets of our time. She was born in Baltimore USA in May 1929 and during her lifetime published over 20 volumes of poetry and 8 books of non-fiction prose. A scholar, activist and a writer whose work established new forms, she received numerous awards, fellowships and prizes including The National Book Award and The Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She was a tireless activist and ambassador for human rights olarly and artistic integrity make her a highly relevant and vital source of inspiration for our time. She died in 2012 and her legacy is a defining force in the ongoing development of poetry.
When Will invited me to suggest poetry for a new piece with Ballet Black to explore ideas of belonging and home we began looking for poems that would serve this theme and that would also offer an exciting balance of sound, image and story through which to create. We considered the works of many poets, past and present, and exchanged poems over a number of weeks. When I sent Will, What Kind of Times Are These? the opening poem from Dark Fields of the Republic, the question in this title and the sequence of poems as a whole, resonated so strongly with us that we knew we had found our source. As Will began work with the dancers and the collaboration between music, poetry and dance began, these astonishing poems, with their unique balance of tender intimacy and epic provocation, guided, challenged and inspired us all.
Dark Fields of the Republic is published by W. W. Norton and is available to purchase at www.wwnorton.co.uk. You can find out more about the life and work of Adrienne Rich through the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust: adriennerich.net
Fiona L Bennett Director of Poetry, Then Or Now.
Notes on Biber's Passacaglia and its accompanying improvisations, Daniel Pioro
Passacaglia for solo violin (1676)
Music originally composed by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704)
Arranged & recorded by Daniel Pioro
Biber’s Passacaglia is one of the first surviving pieces for unaccompanied violin and the final movement of the last of his extraordinary Rosary Sonatas. The piece is built over a constantly repeating bass theme of four descending notes (G F E flat D), whose constant presence seems to symbolise the unending watchfulness of the Guardian Angel. There is a great fragility in this work, moments of sparse textures, moments of glee, intensity, wandering, yet always underpinned by those ever present four notes. This is a piece that, for me, has always called to mind a life cycle. No matter what happens, the tempestuous details, the miserable moments and those of absolute joy too, life just flows on and on. I wanted to record this fragility. With Adrienne Rich's poetry there is no space for perfection, or even of aspiring to it, whatever IT is. But there is room for rawness, honesty, closeness in sound, and I hope that with Ian Dearden's mastery helping me along, we managed to find this. A truth in sound, as there is a truth in Adrienne's words. It is a great sadness to me that I could never work with the dancers of Ballet Black but, as I played this piece, I thought of them. Imagined how they may react to my sound and the flow of this ancient music. Felt their movements, as if they were my own.
I would like to thank Will Tuckett for guiding me into my improvisations, and making me feel like I was surrounded by motion, even when I stood alone in front of a microphone in a tiny studio.
Daniel Pioro
Arts Uncovered Series 2 Episode 3: Ballet Black Ballet Black: A series of fascinating shorts taking you deeper into the world of art and the people behind it.
LIKE WATER acknowledges the resilience of our ancestors, passed down from generation to generation. A world unkind to our people, yet somehow we survive. A world that that has conditioned us to not see the beauty of our skin, hair, culture and our people. But like water we flow, like water we change shape. We remain resilient.
This concept is fascinating to me as an artist, and I really wanted to find a way to bring this idea to life. I decided to take on the challenge of creating an original score for the first movement of the piece. The process of creating this element of the ballet really helped me to understand what I was trying to achieve choreographically. I am by no means a composer or a musician, but I loved the idea of what this additional layer could bring to the way I work. Music is such a strong driving force in dance, and I have enjoyed knowing that I had room to play around with the sound. Using the dancers’ voices as part of the music is always my favourite thing, and I really wanted to expand on that idea. This year I collaborated with Nathalie Vijver, who was my drama teacher when I attended the Cape Town Academy of Performing Arts. Working with Nathalie gave me so much clarity on the themes of Absurdism, drama, writing and staging a theatrical work like The Waiting Game. The title of the piece on its own is quite interesting to me, in the sense that a person can find themselves in a situation where everything is presented to them, but they can choose to make their move at a later stage. This title led us to write a piece that is both complex yet simple, deep, confusing and fun. It’s about the exploration of the scrambling of thoughts that sometimes don’t lead us anywhere, when all the while, time continues to pass us by.
The Ballet Black team and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how this would be best communicated through movement and dance. The most amazing thing about being both a dancer and choreographer in the Company is the constant communication we are able to have, and the idea of building something much greater than ourselves. Thank you to Cassa and the dancers for creating this work with me. I am very happy to share it with you.
Mthuthuzeli November
During a difficult period of my life, I had a series of panic attacks, to a point that my body shook uncontrollably. Sometimes I was so broken that I couldn't focus my mind, and other times my mind worked but the shaking continued. I asked Film Maker Daniel Lowenstein to capture one of these episodes.
The symptoms in this film are genuine and I continued to shake between takes. However, I managed to use the shaking to inform some of the movement.
With the awful moments comes amazing life lessons.
Therefore life is always amazing, even if it doesn't seem to be at the time. - Jake Nwogu
Directed, Shot & Cut by Dan Lowenstein - Film Director http://www.danlowenstein.com/
Music by Mad EP https://soundcloud.com/mad-ep
BBC4 Danceworks Documentary 'Ballet Black - The Waiting Game'.
London’s Ballet Black is a professional dance company bringing ballet to a more diverse audience by promoting dancers of black and Asian descent. The company made headlines in 2019 when it performed during Stormzy’s bravura Glastonbury set.
This film explores the work of artistic director Cassa Pancho as she nurtures aspiring young dancers and gains recognition for her company’s collaborations with world-class choreographers. It also follows the creative process of South African dancer and choreographer Mthuthuzeli November as he creates a dynamic new ballet inspired in equal measure by Samuel Beckett’s seminal Waiting for Godot and African rhythms and language.
The sense of all stops being pulled out is hard to miss. If the first three songs pass with Stormzy on stage, with only his union jack vest, his DJ and an intense light show for company (the latter comes complete with a ticker tape that, instead of news events, shows the names of south London boroughs) that quickly changes. There’s a ballet interlude – designed to underline the fact that black ballet dancers now have shoes designed to match their skin tone – there’s a vast gospel choir, there are dancers, complete with a little kid busting moves, there are children on bikes popping wheelies as Stormzy performs Vossi Bop. The Guardian
It is a non-narrative piece, illustrating that with a snap of the fingers everything can change; with this device we were able to cover a range of different styles, from the, “snap your fingers and I’ll come running,” cartoon-like duet, to the dancers’ bodies reacting to the accelerating snaps and clicks of the ending, to the tenderness of the couple who simply “click” together. During the creative process the dancers embraced the quirkiness of my vocabulary whole-heartedly, with the moves in the studio shifting from sharp and groovy to angular and disjointed, to fluid and intertwined.
When costume designer, Yann Seabra, saw the piece he immediately came up with brightly coloured jackets reflecting the snazzy, sharpness these dancers convey so well. The score for CLICK! is a combination of pre-existing music, original composition, and sound design. This is an approach I tend to use in my work in order to create different dynamics throughout the piece. From the likes of Snapping Fingers by Ken Beebe to Two Of A Kind by composer Kenny Inglis, I find using a variety of music allows me to play with the pace and intensity of the work. My finger-snapping time spent creating this piece with Ballet Black dancers was an absolute pleasure. We clicked. Sophie Laplane
Pendulum is a duet that swings between images of combat and moments of very close partnerships: a feral terrain where the dancers have the freedom to manoeuvre and interpret the material with their own voice. I created Pendulum in 2009 for Cira Robinson and former Company member, Hugo Côrtes, and until now I remember this so clearly. Cassa and I are so humbled and grateful that Cira has passed her knowledge and thoughtful teaching of the piece to a new generation of dancers. It now takes on a whole new lease of life ten years after it was made.
Originally premiering in 2009 at the Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House, London, Pendulum returned to the Barbican London stage in 2019.
Composer: Steve Reich (b. 1936)
Pendulum Music (8 Microphones), 1968
Used by arrangement with Universal Edition (London) Ltd.
‘Historic moment in British ballet history’
In October 2018, after 18 months of development, Freed of London have teamed up with Ballet Black founder and artistic director Cassa Pancho MBE and Senior Artist Cira Robinson to create the first skin tone pointe shoes, handmade in the U.K. for black, Asian and mixed race dancers.
After over a year in development, Freed of London has introduced new colours ‘Ballet Bronze’ and ‘Ballet Brown’ to their core collection. The Freed of London ethos has always been to develop shoes to meet the needs of each generation of dancer and these new colours continue to reflect this.
“This wouldn’t of been achievable without the help of everyone involved, especially “Ballet Black” whom we collaborated with to create these beautiful new colours.” – Freed of London
“I am beyond delighted that Freed have launched these two new colours. Although it may seem like a very small change to the outside world, I believe this is an historic moment in British ballet history and another step forward for culturally diverse dancers across the globe who wear the iconic Freed brand of shoe.
I would like to thank Freed for using their platform to help instigate change, and Cira Robinson, Senior Artist at Ballet Black, for her unending dedication to making this possible.”- Cassa Pancho MBE, Founder & Artistic Director
Ballet Black is a professional ballet company for international dancers of black and Asian descent. The company was founded in 2001 by their Artistic Director, Cassa Pancho MBE, in order to foster talent and provide role models to young, aspiring black and Asian dancers. Beyond the Screen is a short film presented by Facebook
According to reports in Elizabeth Wilson’s book, Shostakovich: A life remembered, the young composer was "fragile and nervously agile,” and indeed, Yuri Lubimov considered that “the fact that he was more vulnerable and receptive than other people was no doubt an important feature of his genius”. The seven movements in Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 11 are all quite short, almost fragmented. Each one, for me, has its own emotion, structure and story, except for the last one, which is a combination of the previous movements. There are real moments of restriction and tension within the choreography and music, which tug the four dancers through the space. The detail and the intricacy capture them in a battle for their own territory. It was really exciting to revisit Captured again, five years after its creation in 2012. There are new dancers in the company, which has allowed me to look at the ballet with fresh eyes. I wanted to push the piece further and really define what was important: that sense of unease and the crackle of tension. I am particularly grateful to Cira Robinson, on whom the piece was originally made, for her beautiful yet sharp, dynamic and ferocious dancing. Also to the other dancers of Ballet Black for bringing new life to Captured, at the same time as building on what was created in 2012.
