The Washington Ballet turns 50 by putting go-go on a pointe shoe

The Washington Ballet turns 50 by putting go-go on a pointe shoe

Go-go music turns 50 this year. So does The Washington Ballet. That double anniversary could have produced a gala-circuit commemorative program of roses and ribbon, instead, the company is opening its 50th season with a world premiere that puts the pounding, polyrhythmic heartbeat of go-go inside a classical ballet, performed live, at the Warner Theatre. It's called Go-Go 50. It runs October 30 through November 1.

Nobody in D.C. has seen this before. That's the whole point.

Chanel DaSilva, a Brooklyn-born choreographer and Juilliard graduate, is making the new work in collaboration with D.C. band Black Alley. The evening concludes with a world premiere by DaSilva and Black Alley, fusing classical ballet with the rhythms and cultural heritage of go-go music in a celebration unique to the nation's capital. The band performs live. Dancers move through it in real time. What that looks like exactly remains to be seen, that's part of what makes this weekend worth showing up for.

DaSilva is not a stranger to ambitious pairings. Since beginning her choreographic career in 2016, she has created works for the Joffrey Ballet, American Repertory Theater, The Juilliard School, Parsons Dance Company, and Ballet Memphis, among others, using dance as a vehicle for social change. She made her international choreographic debut in 2025 with a new work created for Ballet Black. This commission, though, is different in scale and local stakes.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of both the Washington Ballet and go-go music, a coincidence that demanded something more than a retrospective. Go-go, the percussive, call-and-response style born in D.C. clubs in the mid-1970s, is the official music of the District. It lives on in conga lines on U Street, in neighborhood block parties, in the long legacy of Chuck Brown and the Sound of Soul. It has not, until now, anchored a season-opening ballet program at a 1,300-seat downtown theater.

The rest of the program fills out the company's history with care. The evening opens with Trey McIntyre's emotionally charged Blue Until June, followed by Choo San Goh's elegant Configurations, a landmark ballet originally created for Mikhail Baryshnikov. Edwaard Liang's The Art of War features dynamic movement inspired by the flowing strokes of calligraphy. Three pieces, three eras of the company's life, each connected to choreographers who have shaped its identity. Then DaSilva and Black Alley close the night out.

There's something pointed about the sequence. The Washington Ballet was founded in 1976, the same years D.C.'s club scene was forming the grooves that would become go-go. The two institutions grew up in the same city, largely without talking to each other. Two D.C. cultural bastions, the Washington Ballet and go-go music, are converging for one epic celebration, as Axios put it when the season was announced in July. That convergence is decades overdue, and the company knows it.

DaSilva infuses ballet technique with the raw, lived energy of D.C.'s streets, collaborating with Black Alley to bring the heartbeat of the city to the stage. That description, from the Maryland Theatre Guide's season preview, sounds like promotional copy. But it's also just accurate. Black Alley has been a fixture of the D.C. go-go circuit for years. The band's presence in a live performance setting means Go-Go 50 will be loud, syncopated, and physically felt in a way that most ballet evenings are not.

DaSilva is the Co-Founder and CEO of MOVE|NYC|, an arts and social justice organization focused on equity and diversity in the dance profession. A Presidential Scholar in the Arts, she trained at The Juilliard School and became a muse for choreographer Trey McIntyre's work with the Trey McIntyre Project. That the same Trey McIntyre whose Blue Until June opens the program brought DaSilva into his orbit years ago adds a thread of continuity to what might otherwise seem like an unexpected lineup.

DaSilva has received recognition from numerous institutions, including the Joffrey Ballet Winning Works Choreographic Competition, the Martha Hill Dance Fund Mid-Career Award, and a 2023 Princess Grace Award. She knows the classical ballet world inside out. What she does with that knowledge when Black Alley's congas come in will be the question the Warner Theatre's stage has to answer.

What to know before you go

• Dates: October 30 (7:30 p.m.), October 31 (2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.), and November 1 (2:00 p.m.) at the Warner Theatre, 513 13th St. NW.
• Tickets: Starting from $89, available through the Warner Theatre box office and third-party ticketing sites. The October 30 and 31 evening performances are Halloween weekend, so plan accordingly.
• The company's full season: The Nutcracker follows, running November 28 through December 27, also at the Warner Theatre.
• Tickets and season subscriptions: Available directly at washingtonballet.org.

Go-go has always been the most D.C. thing about D.C. A conga line of three dozen classically trained dancers moving through that sound, live, on a Friday night before Halloween, is not a moment the city gets often.

Sources

• The Washington Ballet, Go-Go 50 event page (primary source)
• The Washington Ballet, Chanel DaSilva biography (primary source)
• ChanelDaSilva.com, Her Story (primary source)
• Warner Theatre DC, official schedule
• Axios D.C., "Washington Ballet premieres new go-go ballet," July 9, 2026
• Maryland Theatre Guide, Washington Ballet 2026-27 season announcement
• Washingtonian, October 2026 Culture Guide
• GoComGo, Go-Go 50 program details and ticketing