Between the Archive and Repertoire: Embodied Memory in Stephen Dwoskin’s Ballet Black, 1986

Stephen Dwoskin’s 1986 film Ballet Black is an experimental documentary about the Ballet Nègres, the first black dance troupe founded in London in 1946 by Jamaican born dancer Berto Pasuka (1917–1963).

Dwoskin came across this little-known story thanks to his close friend, the actor Astley Harvey, who was one the company’s original members and who became a consultant on the film. With Harvey’s help, Dwoskin contacted the other members of the company in Britain and Jamaica and organised a reunion party that also features in the film. This position of ‘insider’ was clearly important for Dwoskin. In a 2006 interview, he explains how it was this ‘personal connection’ with the former Ballet Nègres’s members that gave him insight into their creative and political intentions. ‘Without this connection’, he says, ‘it would be virtually impossible to recreate the kind of dance, and dance narratives that were so important to their thinking.’