In 1948 the liner Windrush docked in London, fresh from the Caribbean, and - so the story goes - the course was set for a modern multi-ethnic society. But two years earlier, Britain already boasted its own black dance company. Way ahead of its time, Les Ballets Negres was blazing a trail for black culture.
Yet, despite headline tours throughout the UK and Europe, the company gets barely a footnote in British dance history. And so it might have remained, without the passion of Leon Robinson, a performer himself, who was introduced to Les Ballet Negres co-founder Richie Riley by one of his dance teachers. As he discovered the rich heritage of Les Ballets Negres, he found it hard to believe that its inspirational story was all but unknown to young black dancers.
Working closely with the remarkable Riley, Robinson set about recreating the style of Les Ballets Negres, a project that will culminate in a day-long tribute at London's South Bank on Sunday, including a production of Market Day, a Ballets Negres signature work, which features many of today's top black British dancers.
This is no mere museum piece. Brenda Edwards, the last dancer to perform with Riley before his death in 1997, was amazed to discover how strong the links were between the style of Les Ballets Negres and contemporary black companies. "What they did was a cross between the modern and traditional, which you can see in the roots of what black companies do now. Alvin Ailey, Phoenix, RJC - they're all in there.
"Yet this was back in the 40s and the company finished in 1953 because, as with so many early pioneers, there was no support for them at all. From the 50s through the 70s black dance faced a serious case of arrested development."
The history of Les Ballets Negres actually dates back to 1931, when the young Riley and another young Jamaican, Berto Pasuka, got caught up in the excitement generated by Marcus Garvey's plans for a spectacular show to celebrate the opening of an amusement park in Kingston. The show was short-lived, but Riley and Pasuka had caught the dance bug.
The pair reunited in London in 1946. The classically trained Riley, who attended the Astafieva school, of Ashton and Fonteyn fame, linked up with Pasuka, who had finished work as a dancer on a film called Men of Two Worlds, a rather dodgy study of paternalistic British officials and African natives that also goes under the title Witch Doctor. Enlisting the Nigerian drummers and ethnically mixed co-dancers on the movie, Pasuka decided it was time to strike up a company of his own.
The name Les Ballets Negres was actually a cunning artifice. Trading on sophisticated French cachet, it fitted perfectly into the post-war cultural milieu while also sliding the idea of "black" into the forefront in an era when the only word anyone used was "coloured". But if this was ballet, Jim, it was not as anyone knew it. As Riley notes in his history of the company, "negro ballet is something vital in choreographic art. As conceived by Berto Pasuka, it is essentially an expression of human emotion in dance form, being the complete antithesis of Russian ballet, with its stereotyped entrechats and point work."
Drawing inspiration from Afro-Caribbean folk-tales and rituals, Pasuka and Riley were bringing dance out of their own cultural background, labelling it "ballet" as little more than a flag of convenience. Audiences lapped up their rhythmic dynamism, a world away from the uptight formalism of European classicism. That they foundered, primarily on the rocks of financial mismanagement, represents a great missed opportunity for British dance.
Forty years later black British dancers are fighting battles that Les Ballets Negres blithely side-stepped. For Robinson, whose Positive Steps production company exists to provide opportunities for young black talent, the story of Riley and Les Ballets Negres is crucial in pointing up the racism that he believes still runs rather more than skin deep in major ballet companies.
"A choreographer has a vision of what they are creating. And they think the audience might not see the dance - they will just see the black dancer. So the black dancer doesn't get used. Yet people say Ian Wright is a great footballer or Linford Christie is a great athlete. They don't say Ian Wright is a great black footballer or Linford Christie is a great black athlete."
You might question whether, if the aesthetic of an art form has racism embedded within it, its survival is valid. But Robinson draws back from the barricades when it comes to questioning the future of classical ballet. "If you are a black dancer and you desire to be in the Royal Ballet, then you should have the opportunity. The truly great companies are cross-cultural. Colour should not be an issue when it comes to dance."
It's surely no accident that among the line-up assembled for Sunday's performance of Market Day are numerous classically trained black dancers who have deserted the ranks of established companies, frustrated by the lack of opportunities on offer. Darren Panton, who trained at the Royal Ballet school and is ex-London City Ballet, is a case in point.
Bearing a striking resemblance to Richie Riley, Panton is visibly awestruck when talking about the impact Les Ballet Negres has had on his own sense of purpose. "I can't believe we weren't taught about them during our training," he says. "To know what they achieved so long ago is an inspiration for all black artists working today."
• Tribute to Les Ballets Negres is at the South Bank Centre, London SE1 (0171-921 0600), on Sunday. The performance of Market Day is in the Royal Festival Hall Ballroom at 6.30pm.