The latest iteration of The Royal Ballet’s admirable Draft Works initiative honours Black History Month. Curated by star principal Marcelino Sambé, it featured the work of five Black female choreographers, gifting us an intriguing mix of ideas and styles providing food for thought as well as theatrical interest. Sambé hosted with intelligence and charm, introducing each piece with a short interview with the choreographer to give us an insight into her creative motivation.
We began with In Ascendance by Royal Ballet Artist Rebecca Myles Stewart, whose dancing made a big impression at the Royal Ballet School’s graduate performances in 2024. I loved her music choices: Marian Anderson singing the spiritual Deep River, and the Schubert Ave Maria sung by Leontyne Price. The choreography was beautifully crafted; if the ideas behind the piece were not immediately discernible, the craftsmanship is the essential factor when watching the work of young or emerging dance-makers, and Stewart showed her potential with flair. Her cast of Royal Ballet dancers did her proud. I particularly liked Denilson Almeida who has a punchy, virile stage presence, and Liam Boswell, excellent in everything he dances.
Isabela Coracy, whose own dancing is always filled with artistry and insight, presented Creatures, examining how individuals discover movement, and how emotional expression emerges from connection with rhythm. This was a piece of two halves; beginning with a long solo for a lone woman followed by a duet for two men, it really took off when they joined together and we saw the rhythmic connection between them and the music. This was beautifully danced by Ballet Black's Megan Chiu, Bhungane Mehlomakulu and Elijah Peterkin.
Elisabeth Mulenga’s Christ Alone was based on the emotional baggage carried by those who have been raised in repressively religious homes, in this case Pentecostal Christianity, but relevant to many religions around the world. Mulenga is interested in the imagery used to inspire religious fervour, from the lavish interiors of churches and cathedrals to imagery in popular culture. This extremely interesting concept was not, perhaps, clearly conveyed through the four disparate characters on stage, but with more complex movement it’s an idea ripe for development.
I liked Hannah Joseph’s Kaleidoscope of Time, using two brilliant arrangements of Pure Imagination by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse along with Taka’s A Place to Rest, Hope by Caleb Arredondo and Emotional Intelligence by Camden Stewart. Joseph is an accomplished and thoughtful choreographer, and here the music and dance combined to convey her vision of memory and timelessness. With a cast of outstanding dancers from The Royal Ballet, Emile Gooding, Caspar Lench, Amelia Townsend and Marianna Tsembenhoi, this piece could not fail to enchant.
And now to my favourite of the five pieces: Grey Picket Fence by Blue Makwana. This is credited as a piece in development, but to my mind we saw a complete work of absolute clarity and meaning. My own personal fascination with inherited trauma, something we cannot avoid but frequently do not recognise in ourselves or others (and entire ethnicities suffer from it) resonated through Makwana’s approach of mixing voiceovers with music and dance to depict the breakdown of a family and the individual agony caused by an acrimonious custody battle. Amos Child as the teenager being pulled apart by his parents’ bitter war gave a deeply emotional performance. Ravi Cannonier-Watson, picked out early on as a dancer to watch, filled his interpretation of an authoritarian father and husband with an immensely powerful, deep-seated anger that filled the Clore Studio. I thought as I watched him and the intriguing Tristan-Ian Massa, in his first season with the company but investing his scheming lawyer character with mature determination and unstoppable ambition, that perhaps we were looking at two future Crown Prince Rudolphs. No pressure, gentlemen!
