Ballet Black at the Barbican
Arthur Pita’s clever, heady Shakespearean romp suits the company’s seven dancers to a T
by Donald Hutera – March 20 2018
★★★★☆
Classy popular entertainment is certainly what Ballet Black’s artistic director Cassa Pancho delivers in the company’s latest touring programme, a well-contrasted double bill that offers drama and some altogether glorious romantic fun. Each work springs from a literary source.
The evening opens with The Suit, a new commission from the British choreographer Cathy Marston based on the South African writer Can Themba’s best-known short story. Set in the suburbs of Johannesburg in the early 1950s, it is a relatively straightforward tale of infidelity and humiliation ensnaring a white-collar couple embodied by Cira Robinson and José Alves. She has a lover (Mthuthuzeli November). Her husband finds out. Male shock and rage lead to a cold, symbolic revenge, with the woman essentially cast as the victim of…
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