Sheila Chisholm
IN 1934, when Professor William Henry Bell, Dean and Director of UCT’s College of Music (CoM), invited Dulcie Howes to incorporate her private ballet school into UCT’s music faculty, a new era in ballet/dance began in South Africa. Not only that, UCT (reputedly) became the world’s first university offering ballet at tertiary level.
Under Howes’s direction UCT Ballet School offered a three year Teachers Diploma/certificate with mornings committed to practical classes, lectures and rehearsals Afternoons were devoted to junior ballet classes where students acted as “demonstrators.” Students gained further experience teaching at Howes’ outreach programmes. These included Woodstock’s Marion Institute, and Kensington and Elsies River’s SHAWCO branches. These havens saw youngsters receiving ballet tuition (usually barefoot), either free, or for one or two pennies.
However, while subjects like ballet history, theory, teaching method, and music were taught, emphasis lay with classical ballet training, Spanish dance and, for a short time, modern dance under Tedda de Moor. The aim, to equip students to teach or follow an overseas ballet career, as no professional ballet company existed those years.
Working in collaboration with Bell and later Dr Erik Chisholm Dean/Directors of CoM, Howes, drawing on her talented student band and staff founded UCT Ballet Company. A company evolving into Cape Performing Arts Board’s (CAPAB) Ballet Company in 1965 under her artistic directorship.
David Poole followed her. Veronica Paeper took over from Poole. Then, under Elizabeth Triegaardt’s leadership in 1997 the company became known as Cape Town City Ballet – a self-funding professional company grown from those student seeds planted 81 years earlier.
Globally, universities have sprung up, offering ballet, dance and choreography research degrees. In keeping with these trends Triegaardt, after her appointment as UCT Ballet School Director, in 1997 successfully instituted a BMus (Dance) degree (post-graduate studies also now offered). That year UCT Ballet School became known as UCT School of Dance (SoD).
Falling under the Department of Humanities, SoD’s emphasis moved into more academic dance studies, as opposed to being a full-time training ground. While classical ballet remained part of the curriculum, Sharon Friedman took charge of contemporary dance, Western dance history and dance teaching methods. Susan Botha taught Anatomy. Maxwell Rani led African dance studies. Eduard Greyling taught Dance Notation, Danie Fourie became responsible for in-depth music history and Lindy Raizenberg guided choreography courses.
Presently under Gerard Samuel’s direction SoD’s academic weight has strengthened. “Yes,” said Lisa Wilson, Jamaican born lecturer and current head of contemporary dance, “dance in its different disciplines is still taught. But as a university department we are about scholarship. And must bring together international and local dance academics to share knowledge. To this end we have just held SoD’s 8th Confluences... Negotiating Contemporary Dance in Africa.
Given Africa’s diversity, what and who is African is highly contested. “There can be no one size fitting all. Yet,” said Wilson, “as French is universally accepted as classical ballet’s language, we need to negotiate a key contemporary dance language on which academic contemporary dance practitioners can base study. We must be able to describe what we are doing to arrive at some consensus. If we can come to an understanding which allows primary information to be accessed we will gain quality research.”
Wilson says that too often people don’t regard dance as scholarship. In an address last Wednesday evening at SoD, Professor Sakhela Buhlungu, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, informed that UCT’s Humanities department, comprising 7 000 students, was UCT’s largest department. Catering for as many diverse departments as it does, discussions are underway to link SoD’s synergy with Drama’s dynamics.
Samuel, in his welcome address asked, “What is contemporary dance itself? Does the loose term for dances that occur today suit? Dance scholarship as an endeavour by many in our midst should be as cherished as much as a gift given in performance by dancers, choreographers and producers... our negotiation compels us to navigate contemporary dance in Africa carefully.”
For its three-day programme Negotiating Contemporary Dance in Africa comprised 20 academic papers, five workshops and three performances.
Papers presented included that by Georgina Thomson (Dance Forum and Dance Umbrella’s artistic director). Thomson highlighted how Robyn Orlin’s provocative work had pushed choreographers boundaries, but how failing funding and lack of industry support is limiting new contemporary dance projects. Juanita Finestone – Praeg Associate Professor in Performance Studies and Choreography at Rhodes University, discussed what she termed choreo/politics.
Dr Sarahleigh Castelyn from School of Arts, East London, UK in her paper, titled The Toyi-Toying Body Identity in Contemporary Dance in South Africa, showed how multi-dimensional this body type is. “It moves in a complex, sexual, gender-specific way, gentle at times without ignoring our society’s violence.”
UCT graduates Stanley Ndubga-Kanga and Bernice Valentine spoke about Shifting Community Dance in Cape Town. They asked if “blacks” helping/working in “white” communities would be accepted in the present way “whites in black areas are expected to be?”
Samuel’s paper – Black Bodies Matter expressed concern the “way in dance, some bodies seem to matter more and by implication how other bodies matter less.”
Dr Ketu Katrak Professor of the Drama Department, University California, Irvine titled her paper Politics of Performance: Dance for advocacy of marginalised communities in Post-apartheid South Africa. She expressed an urgency for disabled, gay, lesbian, trans/bi sexual and other marginalised people to use their fundamental right to self-expression and create new dance forms and forums.
Jacki Job’s presentation Butoh Ballet: A workshop study with Cape Town City Ballet, “drew on ballet’s historical legacy and the impressions it continues to make across cultures in South Africa”.
Job does not attempt to reverse whiteness by adulating black dancers, but aimed to “find those blurred spaces that bring us together to add complex twists and depth to dancers performances.” In practical exercises Wilson taught Dinkie Minie, a vibrant Afro-Caribbean song and dance. Ilona Frege took a yoga class. Silumko Koyana gave a beginner level workshop in classical African dance and Sifiso Kweyama’s (Jazzart) workshop dealt with Experiments in Afro- contemporary Dance. He later spoke on the media’s role promoting or demoting contemporary dance in the public’s mindset. Evenings were given over to short dance performances.
What Confluences 8 highlighted was complexity of finding mutually acceptable language for Africa’s many voices. But it served as an intellectual platform aimed at banishing gender/sexual stereotyping, while spearheading new ideas in socio/political shapes. Care is however necessary to remember that while academic dance research is estimable, so too are teachers, dancers, choreographers and audiences. They provide the building blocks paving forward contemporary dance in Africa. Dance research involves an elitist few. Dance performances involve countless.
Neither should processes searching for identity shun classical ballet, as it too contributes relevance to today’s contemporary society.
Glancing back at SoD’s history to its present pedagogism, this department is (arguably) UCT’S most academically transformed.