Latest news with #AShadowWork
Scotsman
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Ballet Black: Shadows, Edinburgh review: 'captivating'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Ballet Black: Shadows, Edinburgh Festival Theatre ★★★★ Unlike a meal, where the various courses complement each other, a dance programme often has to cater to all palates. Ballet Black's Shadows tour does an especially good job of that, made all the more enjoyable by the current crop of dancers who each have talent dripping from every toe. Helga Paris-Morales and Isabela Coracy in Ballet Black's My Sister, The Serial Killer | Photography by ASH If you like your dance served on the abstract side, leaving room for interpretation, Chanel DaSilva's A Shadow Work is ripe for exploration. The piece takes its name from a term often used during the therapeutic process, where we delve inside the parts of ourselves we'd rather not acknowledge. Here, they are quite literally boxed away, opened only occasionally to let the light in, and the demons out. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Taraja Hudson's liquid movement is captivating, slicing between grace and gravitas as she dives into her inner psyche. Dancing alongside (as therapist or pivotal family figure, you choose) Acaoã De Castro weaves the box around her, daring her to lift the lid. When she does, the emotional baggage tumbles out, beautifully embodied by the ensemble as David Plater's striking lighting design floods the stage. By contrast, Cassa Pancho's My Sister, The Serial Killer is an exercise in crystal clear storytelling. Adapted from Oyinkan Braithwaite's novel, the piece will hit the spot with anyone who likes their narrative handed to them on a plate. That said, there is no shortage of imagination in Pancho's delivery, as she introduces us to two sisters – one who kills, the other who cleans up after her. A cast of hospital patients and workers, partygoers, and the ghosts of boyfriends past flesh out the stage nicely.
The Guardian
16-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Ballet Black: Shadows review – killer moves in a dance adaptation of murderous blockbuster
Putting on rubber gloves with your pointe shoes and cleaning up a crime scene is an unusual start to a ballet. But Ballet Black's artistic director, Cassa Pancho, has chosen Oyinkan Braithwaite's hit novel My Sister, the Serial Killer as the source material for her new ballet, and blood-spill is inevitable. Pancho founded Ballet Black in 2001 and has commissioned numerous choreographers over two decades but very rarely made work for the company herself. Here she shows real directorial nous (and has recruited associate choreographer Jacob Wye and rehearsal director Charlotte Broom to help generate the steps, along with the dancers). The novel is a savvy choice: a zeitgeisty title but also a story with a love triangle and high-stakes drama. While keeping dark comedy and light tone, Pancho has slimmed down the plot. Whole characters are lost, along with some nuance and backstory – the serial-killing sister in question, Ayoola (Helga Paris-Morales), comes off as a straight-up psychopath whereas in the book more layers materialise – but it's all done with purpose. The same is true of the choreography itself, where everything has a function driven by the drama, such as the short scene showing Ayoola and older sister Korede (Isabela Coracy) bonding over a groove, establishing the connection that keeps Korede clearing up her sister's mess. Coracy is great in the central role, torn between sibling loyalty and her own desires and demons, who come crowding the stage in corporeal form. There's skilful support from Ebony Thomas as dashing doctor Tade. The other half of this double bill isn't as strong, but it's interesting nonetheless: the UK debut from New York choreographer Chanel DaSilva. A Shadow Work is based on the idea of the shadow self, the parts of our personality we repress. In this case they are trapped in a box held by our protagonist (Taraja Hudson, a pleasure to watch), who is on a journey to acceptance. It's all very clear, the company looking disciplined, and DaSilva has a nice line in recurring motifs, as when Hudson softly raps her fist on her chest, like a racing heart. Or thrusts her arms above her head to make a sharp peak, which could be a sign of prayer, protection, resolve or even imminent violence. The relationship between Hudson and her 'shadows', danced by the ensemble in black, contrasting with Hudson's white, is in turn fearful, playful and sympathetic. The choreography is very precise but it feels as though there could be another potential layer to get stuck into; perhaps that feelingis exacerbated by Cristina Spinei's score, which is all very much of a single timbre and would benefit from the texture of live instruments. But there's a solid idea here from DaSilva, even if it can't match the audience appeal of a sweetly smiling serial killer. At Birmingham Rep on 27 and 28 March, then touring.
The Independent
15-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Shadows, Ballet Black creates a ‘haunting' dance spectacle in ‘handsome' double bill
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.
The Guardian
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Keep dancing: Chanel DaSilva on taking risks, dealing with grief and tackling Trump
Chanel DaSilva has always been a dancer. 'I felt completely free,' she says of her first class. 'I felt at home. Like I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. And it's weird to know that at the age of three.' The New Yorker, 38, is a rising star choreographer in the US, with credits including Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, and is about to make her international debut in London. DaSilva's dance style has been described as 'technique meets humanity', in the sense that she draws on the precision and virtuosity of classical and modern dance, but brings in a freedom and naturalism. The piece she has made here for the company Ballet Black, called A Shadow Work, is in part about dealing with grief over the death of her mother when DaSilva was 19. At the time, trying to get through her college education, she couldn't cope with it. 'So I packed up that grief, put it in a little box, and pushed it down deep. And it stayed there for about 10 years until I was finally brave enough to reckon with it.' In hindsight, 'I should have mourned,' she says. 'But we're not judging.' DaSilva trained at the 'Fame' performing arts school LaGuardia High: 'I was very focused and very clear on what I wanted for my career.' She then went to Juilliard, which is nearby. 'All I did was cross the street, and my entire idea of what dance is and can be just exploded.' Going to therapy in her late 20s unlocked a lot for DaSilva, and A Shadow Work is inspired by the idea of the shadow self in psychology (as well as actual shadows). 'I was fascinated by a video I saw of a little kid seeing their shadow for the first time, horrified at two years old by something following them. And there's a parallel with the moment in therapy where you see the shadow and you're like, this is too much for me to deal with, I want to retreat. But then one day you actually just surrender to the idea that it's there. It's a part of you.' DaSilva's piece shares a double bill called Shadows with a new work by Ballet Black director Cassa Pancho, based on Oyinkan Braithwaite's bestselling book My Sister, the Serial Killer – far from your usual kind of ballet story. That's something DaSilva welcomes. 'Otherwise our art form is going to become so niche and so dated that it won't move forward, it won't evolve and it will die, right?' DaSilva has taken some artistic risks of her own, agreeing with Nina Simone that it's an artist's duty to reflect the times. In 2018 she made Public/Private, performed by one male dancer with an ensemble of female dancers, using the audio recording of Donald Trump's infamous 'grab them by the pussy' boast. 'I was enraged about all of the spewing that was coming from Donald Trump, and I was hearing [that clip] everywhere, every day, I was almost getting numb to it, you know? And I thought, why can't I put it on stage, to put a mirror in front of us to say: this is who we've elected.' DaSilva has written about her own experience of sexual abuse by a private dance teacher when she was a teenager – not an isolated incident in the industry. Now that she is in a position of leadership herself, training young diverse dancers with her non-profit organisation MOVE|NYC| and running a women's mentoring project, she was moved to speak out. 'This open secret is around and if this ever happened to one of my students it would break my heart. So I need to talk about it. What are we doing to protect our young people?' She's an activist, or 'artivist' she would say. Just her presence is an inspiration – it's rare to see black female choreographers at this level in ballet. 'It's not a secret that black women kind of sit at the bottom,' she says. 'I haven't forgotten what it took to get out of east New York, Brooklyn, so that's what drives me. As I climb the ladder, I'm pulling up women with me.' DaSilva's Trump piece was made during his first term as president. Now we're in the era of Trump 2.0 – can she bear it? 'I continue to be hopeful that we will just try our best to put humanity first and not let greed get in the way,' she says. 'I'm trying to have an optimistic point of view so I don't get so cynical my brain just gives up on it all.' DaSilva is intent on making the arts world more equitable, 'to put a little pebble into the pond and hope for some ripples of change' as she puts it. 'Artists really are the catalyst.' Ballet Black: Shadows is at Hackney Empire, London, 13-15 March. Then touring
