{"id":11395,"date":"2021-04-27T17:00:47","date_gmt":"2021-04-27T17:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=11395"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:24","slug":"brenda-edwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/04\/27\/brenda-edwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Brenda Edwards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Brenda Edwards MBE
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

London Festival Ballet (English National Ballet)<\/strong>
\nLondon Contemporary Dance Theatre<\/strong>
\nMartha Graham Dance Company<\/strong><\/h2>\n

<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Brixton-born Brenda Edwards, MBE joined the London Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet) in 1986, becoming the first Black female dancer employed by the company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is said that Peter Schaufuss, artistic director of London Festival Ballet at the time, was supportive of Edwards, but, though there were Black men present in the company, there was (and is) more pressure on Black women dancers to fit into the \u201caesthetic\u201d of the corps de ballet (The Guardian). Edwards recalls that she \u201csometimes felt as though she was reminded of her colour in the working environment\u201d (252). Regarding her profession, Edwards said:<\/div>\n
\u201cIt felt incredibly vibrant and diverse. There were lots of professional black dancers doing jazz, African-Caribbean, contemporary \u2013 though not many in ballet. It was only when I joined the ballet company that I came up against the politics of being black. There was a lot of attention around me, and I wasn’t used to that. But I was raised with a strong sense of who I am, and that helped me handle it.”<\/div>\n
Edwards was \u201cone of the few women to dance the leading role in Maurice Bejart\u2019s Bolero<\/em>.\u201d In 1987, Edwards and Noel Wallace, the first Black dancer with the company, originated roles in Ulysses Dove\u2019s Episodes<\/em>.<\/div>\n
When Edwards left the company as a soloist, she became a member of London Contemporary Dance Theatre and later danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company.<\/div>\n
Edwards graduated from the De Montfort University in Leicester with a degree in dance theory.<\/div>\n
In addition to her career teaching in Europe, she has been the associate producer at the Nottingham Playhouse and the producer for African\/Caribbean Arts. She is the artistic director and producer of Hip, an \u201cannual winter festival for performers of colour in the whole spectrum of dance, from hip hop to ballet\u201d (Prospect Magazine). In 1999, she helped set up an exhibit on the Ballets N\u00e8gres.<\/div>\n
\n

Edwards has twice been nominated for the Cosmopolitan<\/em> Woman of the Year award. In 2005, she was awarded an MBE.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black British Ballet: Race, Representation and Aesthetics, Sandie Mae Bourne<\/a>
\nArtistes: Brenda Edwards, MBE, International Ballet Masterclasses in Prague<\/a>
\nDance forecast, Prospect Magazine<\/a>
\nHow black dancers brought a new dynamism to British dance, The Guardian<\/a>
\nSubject Guide: Black British Dance<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brenda Edwards MBE London Festival Ballet (English National Ballet) London Contemporary Dance Theatre Martha Graham Dance Company Brixton-born Brenda Edwards, MBE joined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dancers"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11395"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11472,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11395\/revisions\/11472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}