Obviously calling it 'niggering' would be racist, and it would be just as racist if the face-paint involved was green and yellow. Find me someone who does call it that and I'll hold your coat while you advise them otherwise.

I'm not saying dancers shouldn't use less contentious colours than black - in fact, if they want to avoid getting embroiled in endless, pointless, baseless arguments it's probably a good idea. But at the end of the day the arguments are baseless - all-black makeup looks nothing like minstrel blackface, tatter coats look nothing like minstrel gear, and there are plenty of good reasons for playing the banjo*. To me they come out of the same stable as "Child was a bourgeois fabricator", "Sharp was a middle-class imperialist", "the Morris Ring was founded by fascists" and so on. In short, "all this English traditional stuff, isn't it all a bit, you know, dodgy?". To which the answer is, No, it isn't.

*This may be a weak point in my argument.