Founded in 2001 by Cassa Pancho OBE, Ballet Black is the UK and Europe’s first Black professional neoclassical ballet company. The company was established with a transformative vision for classical ballet, encapsulated by Pancho’s motto: Change Not Trend. That ethos underpins a mission to showcase diversity on stage and open the art form to Black and Asian dancers, while also changing the profession behind the scenes and the audiences in front of it.

Over more than two decades, Ballet Black has become a pivotal force in reshaping British ballet. It has performed in over 100 venues and built the most diverse audience in the UK for classical ballet. Its position allows it to tell stories other companies cannot, and to champion the costume makers, writers, poets and musicians who find a sense of belonging in its work, enriching its productions and widening the creative landscape.

Since its inception, Cassa has personally commissioned over 70 new works, supporting female choreographers from the earliest stages of their careers and giving choreographic talent an exceptional group of dancers and a platform to match. Ballet Black stands as an exceptional dance company in its own right, and is the first and only UK company to have won all three of the Critics’ Circle company awards.

The change reaches well beyond our own stage. Ballet Black dancers have gone on to teach at The Royal Ballet School, to choreograph on main stages including for the Royal Ballet & Opera, and to carry their work into theatre, screen and casting. The UK’s first skin-tone pointe shoes, developed by Ballet Black with Freed of London, are now used across the sector. [Read more about our impact on the sector →]

A year after launching the professional company, Pancho established the Ballet Black Junior School in 2002, to secure the future of Black ballet dancers and make the art form accessible to children and families who felt ballet was not for them. The school offers classes for children aged three to eighteen across three London sites in Hammersmith, Shepherd’s Bush and East London. Recognising the importance of representation, students are taught by Black and brown role models, including Pancho and company dancers. The school is open to all children. It has educated hundreds, including multigenerational families, with several students progressing to institutions such as the Central School of Ballet, Rambert and London Studio Centre — and, in 2025, Ruby Runham became the first Junior School alumna to join the professional company.

As Ballet Black enters its third decade, a company whose original ambition was to become wonderfully obsolete has instead become an essential part of the dance landscape.