Last night I had the pleasure of seeing a double bill of ballets danced by Ballet Black in the Linbury Theatre underneath the Royal Opera House. The two ballets were 'The Suit' based on a novel and choreographed by Cathy Marston, and 'Ingoma' (which means 'song') which was based on the miners strike in South Africa in 1946 and was choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November, one of Ballet Black's dancers. While I really liked 'The Suit', I loved 'Ingoma'.
'The Suit' is the tale of a man, a woman and a suit. We meet the couple waking up in the morning while the man gets ready for work but he forgets his briefcase and has to return home to find his wife in the arms of another man. He soon scarpers leaving behind his suit, shirt and tie. The man then chooses to rub his wife's nose in her infidelity by keeping the suit on display in their home so she can't put it behind her. It gets to be too much and she hangs herself with her lovers' tie. There's a lot more to this ballet than that since Ballet Black is a troupe of seven dancers so, while the couple are dancing, the other five members play as a washbasin, a toilet. random people in the street on the man's way to work, a really inventive approach to minimal staging but a lot going on.
The second ballet was a lot more abstract and very imaginative. All seven dancers were on stage for most of the time in one of the most energetic performances I've seen in a long time. How on earth they do that is beyond me. It was a mix of ballet and African dance along with some acting and wielding pick axes since they were miners and wore wellies. Yes, wellies, but imaginative wellies that at one point also served as drums. I told you it was imaginative.
Two moments. There was a really tender pas de deux near the start when two lovers dance together when he gets home from working in the mine. They're clearly lovers and you can tell it a mile off as she wraps herself around him and he carries her before she exits on pointe, backwards diagonal tippy. Another when the four women dancers are energetically thrilling in African dance mode and then suddenly lift up on pointe and totally change the mood of the dance. I was all 'wow' what can possibly happen next? It's a serious piece about a serious subject but I was enthralled by it and would love to see it again.
The lighting was excellent, based around the light from pit helmets, the staging was great with one area roped off as the mine and filled with coal and rocks, but it's the dancers that make it work. I think Mthuthuzeli November, the choreographer, was dancing the lead male role but I'm not sure since I didn't buy a programme. I loved it and want to see it again. I hadn't heard of Ballet Black before but, now that I have, I'll keep my eyes open for more performances. Well done people!
Last night I had the pleasure of seeing a double bill of ballets danced by Ballet Black in the Linbury Theatre underneath the Royal Opera House. The two ballets were 'The Suit' based on a novel and choreographed by Cathy Marston, and 'Ingoma' (which means 'song') which was based on the miners strike in South Africa in 1946 and was choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November, one of Ballet Black's dancers. While I really liked 'The Suit', I loved 'Ingoma'.
The second ballet was a lot more abstract and very imaginative. All seven dancers were on stage for most of the time in one of the most energetic performances I've seen in a long time. How on earth they do that is beyond me. It was a mix of ballet and African dance along with some acting and wielding pick axes since they were miners and wore wellies. Yes, wellies, but imaginative wellies that at one point also served as drums. I told you it was imaginative. 
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