FOUR years ago it would have taken all my interviewing skills to get the endearingly humble Mthuthuzeli “Mthuthu” November to talk. Now, the 22-year- old Cape Academy of Performing Arts (CAPA) graduate lights up when he chats about his London life as the up-and-coming first-year apprentice at Ballet Black, and his brief visit home to perform with Cape Dance Company (CDC) in its National Arts Festival(NAF) main programme debut in Grahamstown on Saturday and Sunday.
After graduation, Mthuthu travelled to the UK on a scholarship to perform with Central School of Ballet’s third-year touring company in 2015.
He joined Ballet Black in September that year, where he and Cira Robinson are currently accumulating kudos for their “exquisite-to- watch” performance in Arthur Pita’s Cristaux. Pita was born in Johannesburg, but moved to the UK in 1991 where he studied for a master’s degree at the London Contemporary Dance School.
A prolific and award-winning choreographer, Pita entered the Ballet Black studios late last year with the intention to make Cristaux on two artists while the other six company members learnt the work.
The music he chose was the third movement of Steve Reich’s Drumming, a very complex composition mainly for xylophones that is “particularly difficult to count”.
What he didn’t know was that Reich is one of Mthuthu’s favourite composers and his connection to the music would ultimately inspire him to dance right into the role.
“It was amazing to perform something created on me, and at the Barbican – in front of 3000 people. Not every dance gets to perform there,” says Mthuthu. “Debbie (Turner, founder and artistic director of CDC and CAPA) did a good job – and it’s starting to pay off.”
For the upcoming NAF programme, CDC will perform Jose Agudo’s A Thousand Shepherds, Mthuthu will take the stage again in Christopher L Huggins’ work, Enemy Behind the Gates, and he will perform a lengthened version of his solo, Convivencia, set to new music.
His inspiration? His younger brother, Siphe, who has been on scholarship with the National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto since 2010 and is due to graduate next year.
Both young men were first exposed to ballet through Dance for All’s outreach programme in Montagu, and the development of their respective professional careers is a tribute not only to their own talent and commitment but to those who recognised their potential and invested time and energy in paving the way for them to succeed.
Serendipitously, their paths merged earlier this year when Ballet Black and the National Ballet School of Canada were invited to perform at the Holland Dance Festival. Mthuthu had never seen his 17-year- old brother perform before.
“It was breathtakingly beautiful. I’m so proud of him. We’re so different but I saw a version of me in him, and his performance is the inspiration behind my extension of Convivencia,” says Mthuthu.
“I can’t explain how it touched my heart.” The piece was Aszure Barton’s Come In, originally created for Mikhail Baryshnikov, to music by Vladimir Martynov. Enough said.
“Convivencia is a thank-you to everyone who has contributed to making everything happening now possible,” says Mthuthu, “from the schooling and scholarships to the students at CAPA… and about how they make me feel – the incredible dancers, teachers, friends and family members.”
The soundtrack is now Martynov’s, because Mthutu wanted to reflect the same feeling he had in that moment when he saw Siphe coming on stage. This time, their mother will be in the audience – she hasn’t seen him perform since he won gold in the senior contemporary dance division at the Cape Town International Ballet Competition.
“I’m nervous, because it’s a great opportunity to perform on the main programme at the National Arts Festival,” says Mthuthu.
“I’m taking it very seriously as I’m coming home and I want to show that I’ve improved a lot. And also because I care.”
l For information, www. nationalartsfestival.co.za