The untold stories of Britain’s black ballet dancers will be put centre stage for the first time in a new touring exhibition.

Funded by a £245,500 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Into the Light: Pioneers of Black British Ballet will bring together archive photography, film, newspaper articles and posters alongside new video and audio interviews to trace the history of black British ballet from the 1940s to the present day.

A unique partnership between creative agency Oxygen Arts and Libraries Connected, the exhibition will tour 25 libraries. It will start in Stockport and Redbridge this October and continue until November 2025.

Highlights include an interview with a member of Europe’s first black dance company Les Ballets Nègres, formed by Jamaicans Berto Pasuka and Richard Riley in 1946. Other prominent dancers featured include Brenda Garratt-Glassman, the first black British student at the Royal Ballet Upper School, and Darren Panton, the first black British student at the Royal Ballet boarding school.

When black British dancers started to train in mainstream ballet institutions in the 1970s, students like Panton and Garratt-Glassman were told by UK institutions that they would not be hired because they were black. They, and almost every other black dancer who trained in this period, were forced to seek work abroad, most notably at Dance Theatre of Harlem.

It was not until the mid-1980s that black dancers began to find success in established British ballet companies, but progress remained slow. This led to schemes such as The Royal Ballet’s Chance to Dance and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Dance Track, launched in 1991 and 1997 respectively, to help children from diverse backgrounds access ballet training. The exhibition features Shevelle Dynott, the first dancer to come through Chance to Dance to have a career in ballet at English National Ballet.

Despite these efforts, Oxygen Arts estimates that less than 3% of dancers currently employed in the biggest three ballet companies are from a Black British background. Even today, some senior ballet professionals continue to defend all-white corps, blackface and deeply offensive depictions of global majority cultures in pieces such as Petrushka and La Bayadère.

The exhibition will be accompanied by performances of Island Movements, an original Windrush-themed ballet, this autumn. There will also be dance, writing and photography workshops, talks, panel events and a virtual exhibition by Birmingham Open Media that will include a motion capture ballet performance.

Into the Light: Pioneers of Black British Ballet is based on the research of Dr Sandie Bourne, a dancer, choreographer and academic specialising in the historic under-representation of black artists in British ballet institutions.

Marsha Lowe, Director of Oxygen Arts, said:

This exhibition is an important step in giving our black British pioneers the recognition they deserve, bringing their challenges and achievements to a much wider audience. But we want to go further, to change the perception of ballet by diversifying ballet audiences and encouraging the next generation of young black dancers to see ballet as ‘for them’.

Stuart McLeod, Director of England - London & South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said:

We are delighted to support this project, which thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, will mean that more people will be able to get involved with, protect, and learn about the exciting heritage right on their doorstep. Heritage has a huge role to play in instilling pride in communities and boosting local economies, and this project is a fantastic example of achieving those aims.

Isobel Hunter, Chief Executive of Libraries Connected, said:

Public libraries, with their diverse audience base and commitment to democratising culture, are the perfect venue for this groundbreaking exhibition. There has never been a better time to celebrate the achievements of these black British pioneers; it’s hugely exciting to see their stories brought to life in this way.

The Black British Ballet project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Arts Council England, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ Windrush Day Fund and the Black Funding Network. It is delivered in partnership with English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Royal Academy of Dance, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Central School of Ballet and Kidbrooke Community Hub.