Queer Places:
Berto Pasuka (1911-1963) was born Wilbert Passerley in Jamaica. Information
about the Jamaican dancer is sparse. He loved to dance and travelled to
Britain in 1939, where he undertook a course in ballet. Through-out the war he
made a living by dancing in cabaret shows in West End nightclubs, and
modelling for sculptors, painters and photographers, including
Angus McBean, who admired Berto's fine
physique. Towards the end of the war, Berto established Britain's first black
ballet company, Ballet Negres, which made its debut in 1946.
Pasuka ignored his family's wishes for him to become a dentist, instead following his own desire to dance. He studied classical ballet in Kingston, where he first saw a group of descendants of runaway slaves dancing to the rhythmic beat of a drum. Feeling inspired to take black dance to new audiences, he moved to London in 1939, enrolling at the Astafieva dance school to polish off his choreography skills. Following his work on the movie Men of Two Worlds he and fellow Jamaican dancer
Richie Riley, formed their own dance company. Les Ballet Negres was born in the 1940's bringing traditional and contemporary black dance to the UK and Europe with sell-out tours.
On 20th April, Les Ballets Nègres performs for the first time at the Twentieth-Century Theatre in Westbourne Grove. The only black ballet company in Europe, their ground-breaking performance received both critical praise and public acclaim and allowed them to move to the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill and play in other European venues. There were 21 dancers, 18 of whom were black. The BBC recorded performances that including Market Day and others were Cabaret 1920 and De Bride Cry. A lack of funding saw it slip into obscurity but the two men behind Les Ballets Nègres, Berto Pasuka, proclaimed by the ballet critic of The Stage as ‘the most colourful dance personality since Isadora Duncan’, and Richie Riley.
Berto Pasuka
by Angus McBean
vintage bromide print, published in Ballet January 1946
14 3/4 in. x 11 3/4 in. (374 mm x 299 mm)
Purchased, 2008
Primary Collection
NPG P1305
Riley gave up dance when the troupe disbanded and turned to painting and sculpture (he studied at the Slade). He was interviewed as part of a queer oral history project (Hall Carpenter) but deflected direct admissions of his sexuality (he had married) in what Professor Nadia Ellis has described as the ‘politics of delicacy’. His life and work were reflected in the BBC documentary Ballet Black (1982).
Pasuka, who in part left Jamaica to escape prejudice, was found dead in his Paris apartment with rumours that he was killed by a lover. He had continued to dance and was photographed by Angus McBean. When the company had trouble paying wages, one of its supporters was Cambridge law fellow,
Bryan Earle (Rufus) King, an important figure in the promotion of black interests and a supporter of a National Museum on his home country St Kitts and also of the Caribbean Artists Movement established in 1966. King had white British ancestors mixed in St Kitts with those of slaves. He was homosexual but largely non-practising “for lack of anyone to practise with” he is said to have declared, but in later life, living on St Kitts, several young men helped out in his house. A similar situation in the hidden gay influence behind dance from other cultures is to be seen with
Ram Gopal. Gopal was Burmese-Indian by birth, was briefly married to Edith Alexander (perhaps to facilitate remaining in Britain), and ‘the Nijinsky of India’ popularised classical Indian dance in the West from the late 1930s, emphasising his “exoticism” to titillate Western audiences.
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