Review: BLACK SABBATH - THE BALLET at Kennedy Center

Black Sabbath - The Ballet brings together the music of heavy metal band Black Sabbath with Birmingham Royal Ballet’s (BRB) classical artistry. This is BRB’s Kennedy Center premiere and a testament to both BRB’s Director Carlos Acosta CBE and the Center for supporting risky endeavors like this that seek to stretch the boundaries of what ballet is and should be. 

While I did not wholeheartedly love this work, it is ambitious and succeeds on many fronts. The audience on Wednesday night included many devoted fans of Sabbath’s music, showing that crossover works like this can bring together balletomanes and metalheads alike. Featuring three acts by three different choreographers, the ballet seeks to both to tell the story of the band’s origin and success, complemented by archival audio recordings of band members, and use their music as the jumping off point for a mysterious tale of mythic proportions that doesn’t quite hang together. 

In addition to the multiple choreographers, Black Sabbath - The Ballet draws on three different composers to arrange and complement the Sabbath tracks and practically every visual trick in the book. Like a modern rock show at Madison Square Garden, there is moody lighting, smoke and haze, strobes, set pieces, and more. It’s visually arresting if, at times, distracts from the dancers. Most effective was a simply lighting-based backdrop of six horizontal lines like guitar strings that changed color and ebbed in intensity during the second act. Most importantly, the ballet features guitarist Marc Hayward live onstage, acting as a sort of mythical spirit of metal . The program lists him as “Guitar Spirit” and his introspective amblings serve to remind us of the ballet’s aim to not just dance to the music, but to reveal something about the music - and Sabbath’s members - to us. 

Sadly, with all of the musical and visual intricacies happening onstage, the ballet choreography often feels like an afterthought, with lazy or even frivolous moves that feel beneath the quality of the dancers and the music. For example, the end of Act I includes lots of shimmying, as if the dancers are at a sock hop; this continues at times throughout, culminating in fist pumping and air guitar playing in Act III. Yes, the music is transformative, but shouldn’t trained dancers be able to respond in a more interesting way than an average concert-goer? 

The choreography in Act I by Raúl Reinoso was the most distinct, especially the intentionally-awkward port de bras that pulled the dancers arms behind their backs. Some of the unison sections looked under-rehearsed, as turns were not in sync or spacing appeared crowded. It was refreshing, however, to see dancers having fun, especially in Act III. Despite classical training, some of the dancers demonstrated not just comfort but delight in being grounded. First Soloist Riku Ito was especially at home, hamming it up while turning with abandon. This is not a “pretty” ballet, nor should it have been, and it was essential that the dancers let go of the typical norm to make nice lines and images onstage. 

Black Sabbath - The Ballet runs through Sunday, June 8 at 1:30. While it wasn’t my favorite work of the season, it should be celebrated for its boldness and is a compelling and moving vehicle for this company. How do we know what will work until we try? It’s the Kennedy Center at its best: bringing challenging, new work to DC that is expensive to produce. You won’t see it anywhere else. 

Runtime is 2 hours, 20 minutes with two intermissions. 

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