This article reconstructs and analyses, for the first time, the Royal Ballet's state-sponsored tour of apartheid South Africa from February to April 1960. It traces the public outcry surrounding the company's decision to exclude its only dancer of colour, as well as the tour's planning, execution, and continuation through the Sharpeville massacre, local reception, and aftermath. In this episode of the post-war period, politics and high culture operated in tandem to sustain Britain's imperial connections amid decolonization and the Cold War. The article proposes a reframing of the ‘Wind of Change’ moment, analyses the role of ballet in Britain's cultural Cold War, and underscores the British state's willingness to set aside human and moral concerns for political advantage. Above all, it argues that, rather than being peripheral to, or merely reflecting, the British state's agenda, ballet enacted its politics.

本文首次重建并分析了皇家芭蕾舞团在1960年2月至1960年4月间由国家赞助的种族隔离南非之旅。通过Sharpeville大屠杀，当地接待和善后进行计划，执行和延续。在战后时期的这一时期，政治和高级文化齐头并进，以在非殖民化和冷战期间维持英国的帝国联系。这篇文章提出了“变革之风”时刻的重新构想，分析了芭蕾舞在英国文化冷战中的作用，并强调了英国政府愿意出于政治优势而抛弃人类和道德问题。最重要的是，它认为，