Shadows, Ballet Black creates a ‘haunting' dance spectacle in ‘handsome' double bill

Independent

15-03-2025

Ballet Black has adapted Oyinkan Braithwaite's novel My Sister, The Serial Killer with irresistible verve, making murder dreadfully relatable.
It's a marvel of deft dance storytelling as it mixes stylish dancing and witty characterisation. Paired with Chanel DaSilva's A Shadow Work, it makes a handsome double bill.
Ballet Black was created to advocate for Black and Asian dancers, but this small, adventurous company has always punched well above its weight in creating new works.
Choreographed by founder Cassa Pancho, My Sister, The Serial Killer shows off the dancers' charisma and versatility.
Isabela Coracy is a superb Korede, the put-upon big sister who always has her sister's back, up to and including arriving with bleach and rubber gloves to clean up after the latest murder.
In public, there's an emphatic edge to Coracy's dancing, which melts away when we see glimpses of her private self. Working with Ebony Thomas's handsome doctor, she spins into a dancefloor fantasy; as the story darkens, we see her wrestle with her nightmares.
As her sister, Ayoola, Helga Paris-Morales soaks up admiration, turning towards male attention or to her phone camera like a flower seeking the sun.
There's a hilarious sense that murder is just part of her flirtation routine; she sways her hips as she gets out the poison bottle. Pancho and her dancers make telling details shine. When Ayoola reaches out to the doctor, we notice the bracelet, a gift from a previous victim, sparkling on her wrist.
The sisters' bone-deep relationship is the heart of the ballet. Coracy and Paris-Morales are wonderfully at home with each other. Bickering over favourite songs layered into Tom Harrold's pacy score, they flip from irritation to fondness in a second.
Pancho and associate choreographer Jacob Wye build up a compelling world around them, from daily life at the hospital to social dancing at parties. Richard Bolton's sets and Jessica Cabassa's bright costumes are simple but precise.
The ballet has a wilder side, too, as dreams haunt Korede or dancers transform into the river where the sisters dump a body.
There's a different kind of haunting in DaSilva's A Shadow Work. Taraja Hudson dances alone, with fluid steps and bold gestures.
Dark-clad dancers then emerge around her, aspects of herself that she can accept or push away. As the lead shadow, Acaoã de Castro presses his forehead into her hand, or produces a sinister box, a place for emotional baggage.
It's an episodic work, but DaSilva's choreography is fluent, both in Hudson's introspective solos and in the massed dances for the crowd of shadows.