News: Dominic Antonucci appointed Assistant Director at Birmingham Royal Ballet

[Jan McNulty]

From BRB's website (via Facebook):

 

https://www.brb.org.uk/post/dominic-antonucci-is-appointed-as-assistant-director-of-birmingham-royal-ballet?fbclid=IwAR3dgJmrirl4dpVLYvnfG-aYe2WZdfO1IXHbjv5TUua7AurgrCB38DRGuNA

 

I'm thrilled.

[Odyssey]

Really good news. BRB has assembled a terrific team with a good mixture of ‘old’ and new.

[SheilaC]

I hope it's ok to post this information under this theme as it's about BRB but not about Domininc, rather about their educational work.

In today's links there's one for the Guardian interview with Julie Felix- not the singer but a former ballet dancer who couldn't find work in the UK, because she is black, and moved to the USA to dance with Dance Theater of Harlem. She returned to England as a teacher and remedial coach for SWRB. (She doesn't mention she was married to Joseph Cippola, one of the most charismatic dancers ever, who had been a fellow dancer at DTH despite being white). She claims that BRB's educational work, although successful in the past, has 'fizzled out', a bit unfortunate given all the community and diversity related work the company does. (She blames LEA budget cuts rather than the company).

She refers to Ballet Black and the lack of black dancers in mainstream companies but implies that it's only in this century that British companies have had dancers of colour. Yet: Johaar Mosaval joined SWTB in 1951. Vincent Hantam danced with Scottish Ballet in the last century. Jose Manuel Carreno joined ENB in 1990 and RB in 1993. Acosta joined ENB in 1991 and RB in 1998.

Despite the minor inaccuracies it's an interesting article and discusses an important issue. Perhaps dancers of colour could be one of our threads?