Scottish Ballet will be joined by Senior Guest Artist Cira Robinson from Ballet Black for the world premiere of Helen Pickett’s The Crucible, starting at the Edinburgh International Festival. The production will then embark on a tour, enabling even more audiences to experience the collaboration of performance.
As part of a longstanding collaboration between the two companies, Ballet Black’s Senior Artist Cira Robinson will join Scottish Ballet to dance the role of Tituba. Bringing a breadth of experience, Cira will play a vital role in developing this rich and complex character in Arthur Miller’s drama of power and persecution. The tale is an iconic one, so it’s transferral to the discipline of ballet will be an intriguing experience.
Ballet Black is the UK’s professional ballet company for international dancers of black and Asian descent. Their goal is to see a fundamental change in the number of black and Asian dancers in UK ballet companies. By creating a central black female character for The Crucible, rarely seen in the UK outside of Ballet Black repertoire, the two companies aim to openly address the challenges of diverse representation in UK ballet (on and off stage), and particularly the lack of black British female ballet dancers.
Recently English National Ballet came under fire for its use of black female ballet dancer Precious Adams in the advertising campaign for its production of Swan Lake, when Adams was not cast. It is hoped that through initiatives such as that by Scottish Ballet and Ballet Black will help to champion black female ballet dancers outside of Ballet Black itself.