Excitement is mounting as top Cape Town-based dance companies prepare to thrill audiences at the annual National Arts Festival, which opens today. By DEBBIE HATHWAY
Grahamstown’s status as one of the top arts festivals in the world is reason enough for entertainers and artists to want to be part of it – at least once in their careers – but two decades since Cape Dance Company first presented work there they already have two sold-out performances before the National Arts Festival (NAF) opens.
Granted, dance productions usually do well at the NAF box office but dance fans will have to act quickly to secure tickets for Cape Dance Company’s remaining performances of Blue today and tomorrow. Blue features four pieces by three choreographers. In addition to Bradley Shelver’s Scenes, this programme of neoclassical work comprises the all-male work of the same name, as well as In the Mirror of her Mind, by Christopher Huggins. FadeOut.Five completes the showcase with choreography by Belinda Nusser.
Festival patrons will be able to see recent graduates of the Cape Academy of Performing Arts, Mthuthuzeli November and Londiwe Khoza, perform Scenes as fully-fledged professionals, now ready to take the theatre world by storm. Their latest inspiration comes from what began as a two-month scholarship with London’s Central School of Ballet, and developed into a six-month contract incorporating an unforgettable countrywide tour with the company as Ballet Central, at the height of the London season. A review of one of Ballet Central’s performances at the Royal Opera House notes that the inclusion of the pair “raised the dynamics. Londiwe Khoza and Mthuthuzeli November are both gifted with strong physical presence, which they used to good effect in the duet from Bradley Shelver’s Scenes set to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. The dancers were also integrated in other works in the repertoire, giving them the opportunity to show well-honed technique”.
Justifiably proud of her protégés, artistic director Debbie Turner says it is a privilege to nurture such talent. The young dancers have matured as individuals and as artists and their farewell from Ballet Central held the promise of “until next time”. “What a great journey it has been and such a privilege to be able to perform this beautiful (Scenes) duet in England. The response we’ve received from people has just been amazing,” says November.
Asked about what changes they have noticed in each other, November simply says Khoza is even more beautiful as a dancer while she points out his tremendous performance quality, further enhanced by being surrounded by a new group of contemporaries. One of them is Kai Tomioka, who says November has been one of his biggest inspirations, teaching him so much about dance and also helping him to develop as a person.
Looking into the future, Khoza has her sights firmly set on working for a repertory company, and will be taking up a four-month contract with Joburg Ballet shortly. November would like to join a company such as the renowned Wayne McGregor Random Dance, where he has opportunity to develop his choreographic skills as well as his performance ability. Both bemoan the fact that South Africa continues to offer so little to professional dancers to encourage them to pursue successful, lucrative careers on home soil.
Meanwhile, visitors to the university town will also have the chance to see Cape Town City Ballet perform two Hamburg Ballet works, with the blessing of the legendary choreographer, John Neumeier. His trusted ballet master, the South African-born Victor Hughes, returned to their studios to ensure that the pieces would be of the required standard and said he was “very pleased” that a new group of Cape Town City Ballet graduate dancers would have the opportunity to perform the work. “Every time I teach his story ballets, I’m amazed at Neumeier’s ability to make the steps mean something. A series of mere ballet steps can say very little, actually, but he has a truly amazing gift to take the audience on a complete emotional journey,” he says. The performances of Spring and Fall, to the String Serenade in E major by Dvorak and the iconic Le Sacre, to the revolutionary score of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, will be performed today and tomorrow.
For contemporary dance supporters, there is LoveZero, a double- bill comprising Mode (choreographed by Steven van Wyk and Thalia Laric, whose most recent award is the 2014 Kyknet Fiesta for Best Dance or Physical Theatre Production) and Cipher (choreographed by Cilna Katzke and Kristina Johnstone). They are described as abstract dance works that investigate the distance between memory and reason, emotion and logic, and will be performed on July 6, 7 and 8.
Two extra dancers add more depth to the cast of Mode, which premiered with four dancers and the soprano, Robin Botha, at the Baxter Dance Festival 2014. It’s a wonderfully quirky piece that draws on “humour and aesthetic inspiration in the formal elements of social dances”.
Cipher is a numbers game that “explores the human inclination to ascribe emotion to that which seems obscenely rational. The dance navigates the tension between order and disorder, harmony and anarchy, the logical and the illogical”.
• www.nationalartsfestival.co.za, 0860 002 004. For Cape Town-based fans, there will be a preview of LoveZero on Saturday at the Youngblood Gallery, 70-72 Bree Street. Tickets: R50, 021 424 0074.