Bongani Ndodana
BRIGHTLY COLOURED tights and tutus worn by children grinning like Cheshire cats seem almost surreal in the dusty streets and squalor of the Cape Flats, where the Cape Town City Ballet (CTCB) have established their Dance for All project. It’s at moments like these that one truly realises the original meaning of those well worn phrases “cultural diversity” or, even worse, “rainbow nation”.
Classical ballet is possibly the pinnacle of western “high art” and here it is, not from the Bolshoi or Sadler’s Wells, but from a battered Masakhane Hall in NY1 Guguletu.
Philip Boyd is the dynamo behind this outreach project – for which he won the Nederburg ballet prize last week – and his dream is to make the Masakhane Hall a thriving, pulsating centre for dance and all the performing arts. When he retired from the stage after 20 years he decided to devote his energies to dance education. His passion and personal involvement with his work has led him and his wife, former prima ballerina Phyllis Spira, to foster Theo Dindwa, one of the children in the project.
Theo (14) is studying ballet as a school subject for matric and also attends the University of Cape Town (UCT) ballet school. He has just pirouetted away with top awards at the recent Cape Town eisteddfod.
“I am a workaholic,” says Boyd, “and I care for the future of ballet in this country.” Why did he leave the luxuries of retirement from a demanding stage career to hit the dusty roads of the townships with the ballet gospel? “Dance is a language we all understand,” says Boyd. “There is talent out there and we can build bridges between cultures. It also takes the kids off the streets and gives them something to do. There is very little that stimulates their minds and we are offering an opportunity for them to grow and develop.”
The project is in its fifth year and has been financed mostly by a trust set up by former UCT ballet school professor and director of the former Capab ballet, David Poole. He was the one who encouraged his students to go out to the townships and give classes.
But, according to Boyd, “the students were not doing this because they loved it, but as part of their course. They lacked experience and were not well-equipped.” It was then that he approached current CTCB director Veronica Paeper, and established a formal education programme that supports 200 children.
Such programmes often run into problems because communication barriers mean that the artistic needs of the community they are trying to help are not adequately addressed. “I have never felt antagonised by the community in Guguletu,” says Boyd. The only thing that he has had to convince the people of is that the arts can be a viable profession. Boyd is at pains to explain that “entertainment is an industry. There’s so much talent in these children.”
But this is more than just kids learning a pas de deux. It’s an effort to give a community its pride and to produce children with minds that can tackle life’s challenges. “Parents are thrilled with the programme,” Boyd says with some excitement. “They are glad their children aren’t running in the street.”
It’s all well and good to expose children to ballet, but how much of traditional African art forms are they being exposed to? “We have an African dance teacher and a drummer who are part of the programme,” says Boyd. “We’re not out there specifically to create ballet dancers – although that’s welcome. We’re there to teach the kids self-confidence so they can respond positively to the testing demands of their future professions.”