Artists

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  Founder, Artistic Director & CEO Ballet Black Cassa Pancho, MBE

  

  Founder, Artistic Director & CEO Ballet Black Cassa Pancho, MBE

  Founder & Artistic Director of Trinidadian and British parents, Cassa founded Ballet Black in 2001 after graduating from professional dance training and was one of the first dancers and choreographers in the Company. Her initial goal was to provide role models to young, aspiring Black and Asian dancers. A year later, she opened the BB Junior School in Shepherd’s Bush. Cassa is a graduate of the 2009 National Theatre cultural leadership programme, Step Change. Since starting the Company, she has commissioned work from a wide range of choreographers, including Liam Scarlett, Richard Alston, Sophie Laplane, Javier de Frutos, Annabelle Lopez- Ochoa, Shobana Jeyasingh, Henri Oguike, Arthur Pita, William Tuckett and Mthuthuzeli November. Ballet Black has won both the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Company in 2009, Best Independent Company in 2012 and Best Mid-Scale Company in 2022. Cassa was awarded an MBE in the 2013 New Years’ Honours List for Services to Classical Ballet and has served as a judge on the panels of both the Kenneth Macmillan Choreographic and BBC Young Dancer competitions and the Arts Foundation Futures Dance Jury in 2022. She is a Patron of Central School of Ballet and a vice president of The London Ballet Circle. In 2017, Cassa and former BB dancer, Cira Robinson, collaborated with renowned British ballet shoe manufacturer, Freed of London, to create two brand new pointe shoe colours to enable dancers of Black and Asian descent to buy skin-tone pointe shoes ready-made. In 2018, Cassa was awarded the Freedom of the City of London. 

  In 2020, she authored a guide for improving equity and access in ballet for dance schools and companies that has been widely shared in the arts world. She is a Board Member of Scottish 

  Ballet, and serves on their Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee. Cassa also works as a consultant in EDI for several British dance organisations, including National Youth Ballet and the Elmhurst School of Ballet. In 2022, Cassa collaborated with the Ballet Black Company 

  artists to create Say It Loud, a ballet to commemorate the Company’s 20th anniversary. 

  This production won Best Dance Production at the 2022 Black British Theatre Awards. To date, 

  she has commissioned over 40 choreographers, to create over 60 new ballets for the Company. She teaches regularly for the BB Junior School in Shepherd’s Bush, West London and has a degree from Durham University. 

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  Choreographer William Tuckett

  

  Choreographer William Tuckett

  As well as choreographing for and performing as a member of The Royal Ballet for over 25 years, William is an award-winning, internationally renowned director and choreographer, with work touring Europe, the USA, Canada, Japan and China. He has worked in both commercial and subsidised theatre, opera, musical-theatre, television and Ballet, English National Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, National Ballet of China, Ballet Black, The Royal Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Garsington Opera, Sadler’s Wells, PARCO Theatre Tokyo, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s Globe, Almeida Theatre, Sage Gateshead, The Egg Theatre, Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Modern, The National Gallery, the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky Arts. He was made the first ROH2 Creative Associate for The Royal Opera House (2006), responsible for devising and delivering innovative work for new and family audiences.

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  Choreographer Mthuthuzeli November

  

  Choreographer Mthuthuzeli November

  Mthuthuzeli November Senior Artist & choreographer of Nina: By Whatever Means. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Mthuthu started dancing at the age of 15 with the outreach programme, Dance For All. In 2011 he was awarded a scholarship to attend the Cape Academy of Performing Arts (CAPA), where he graduated with a Distinction. Mthuthu won a gold medal in the Contemporary category in the South Africa International Ballet Competition as a Junior in 2012, and a Senior in 2014. He has worked with Cape Dance Company under the direction of Debbie Turner, with choreographers including Bradley Shelver and Christopher Huggins. Mthuthu created his debut choreographic work in 2014 on the Cape Dance Company Junior Company. In 2015 he travelled to the UK to dance with Central School of Ballet’s third year touring company, Ballet Central, performing all over the country. He danced in a South African production of West Side Story before joining Ballet Black as First Year Apprentice in September 2015 and was promoted to Junior Artist in 2016 where he created roles in Arthur Pita’s Cristaux and Christopher Hampson’s Storyville. He made his first ballet for Ballet Black, Interrupted in July 2016. Mthuthu was awarded South Africa’s Emerging Artist prize at Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees for his solo work. In 2017 he was a lead dancer in the revival of Martin Lawrance’s Captured and created the role of The Wolf in Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa’s Red Riding Hood. Between 2019 and 2022, he has created roles in works by Martin Lawrance, William Tuckett and Gregory Maqoma, and collaborated with Cassa Pancho and the Company to create Say It Loud, a celebration of BB’s 20th anniversary in 2022. In 2017, Mthuthu was commissioned by the Cape Dance Company to create a new work, funded by the National Arts Council of South Africa, which premiered at Artscape Theatre in Cape Town. In 2018, Mthuthu created a solo for Precious Adams of English National Ballet, for the Emerging Dancer competition. In 2019, Ballet Black commissioned him to create Ingoma, his first UK main stage work that has toured the UK and Europe that won both the Olivier Award and a Black British Theatre Award for Best Dance Production. This was followed by WASHA: The Burn From The Inside (a co-commission between Ballet Black, The Grange Festival and Studio Wayne McGregor). He also created and danced in a pas de deux for Ballet Black’s appearance with British Grime artist, Stormzy for Glastonbury 2019, and was promoted to Senior Artist in 2020. During the pandemic, he created Ballet Black’s first short film, Like Water, which went on to win seven film awards. In 2021 his postponed live work for Ballet Black, The Waiting Game, was staged in the UK. He has created ballets for Cape Town Opera, Cape Town City Ballet, The Grange Festival, further commissions for English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition, Northern Ballet, Tanz Ensemble for Luzerner Theater, Ballet Central and Rambert School. For film he created My Mother’s Son for Fall For Dance North and Burn From the Inside for Ballet Black.

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