Cassa Pancho, MBE

Founder & Artistic Director of Trinidadian and British parents, Cassa founded Ballet Black in 2001 after graduating from professional dance training and was one of the first dancers and choreographers in the Company. Her initial goal was to provide role models to young, aspiring Black and Asian dancers. A year later, she opened the BB Junior School in Shepherd’s Bush. Cassa is a graduate of the 2009 National Theatre cultural leadership programme, Step Change. Since starting the Company, she has commissioned work from a wide range of choreographers, including Liam Scarlett, Richard Alston, Sophie Laplane, Javier de Frutos, Annabelle Lopez- Ochoa, Shobana Jeyasingh, Henri Oguike, Arthur Pita, William Tuckett and Mthuthuzeli November. Ballet Black has won both the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Company in 2009, Best Independent Company in 2012 and Best Mid-Scale Company in 2022. Cassa was awarded an MBE in the 2013 New Years’ Honours List for Services to Classical Ballet and has served as a judge on the panels of both the Kenneth Macmillan Choreographic and BBC Young Dancer competitions and the Arts Foundation Futures Dance Jury in 2022. She is a Patron of Central School of Ballet and a vice president of The London Ballet Circle. In 2017, Cassa and former BB dancer, Cira Robinson, collaborated with renowned British ballet shoe manufacturer, Freed of London, to create two brand new pointe shoe colours to enable dancers of Black and Asian descent to buy skin-tone pointe shoes ready-made. In 2018, Cassa was awarded the Freedom of the City of London. 

In 2020, she authored a guide for improving equity and access in ballet for dance schools and companies that has been widely shared in the arts world. She is a Board Member of Scottish 

Ballet, and serves on their Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee. Cassa also works as a consultant in EDI for several British dance organisations, including National Youth Ballet and the Elmhurst School of Ballet. In 2022, Cassa collaborated with the Ballet Black Company 

artists to create Say It Loud, a ballet to commemorate the Company’s 20th anniversary. 

This production won Best Dance Production at the 2022 Black British Theatre Awards. To date, 

she has commissioned over 40 choreographers, to create over 60 new ballets for the Company. She teaches regularly for the BB Junior School in Shepherd’s Bush, West London and has a degree from Durham University.