Two powerful women, each with a unique voice, are the inspiration for this new double bill from the redoubtable Ballet Black, a company that increasingly defines itself by the unique and intelligent character of the work it performs.
The premiere is Nina: By Whatever Means, choreographed by company dancer Mthuthuzeli November, a tribute to the music and passion of Nina Simone. It begins at the Montreux jazz festival in 1976, a point where the complications of the singer’s life had begun to impinge on the wonder of her music, then takes us back to the beginning, when the child Nina (charmingly played by Sienne Adotey) first began to dream of being a classical pianist.
