November 17, 2006
By Lucille Davie
IF you want to know what it's like to float on a cloud, on the way to heaven, go and get a slice of Ballet Theatre Afrikan's Hooked on Classics.
This must be what the angels do all day – dance like there's no such thing as gravity. These dancers are breathtaking, exuding an energy and elegance that is something other-worldly.
It's hard to pick a favourite piece in the evening - every dance seems better than the previous one, and the tour de force, A Midsummer Night's Dream, is superb.
This is the company's second Hooked on Classics performance, also danced last year at the University of Johannesburg's intimate theatre. In March it staged a delightful version of Rudyard Kipling's Just So … stories.
The first half consists of Grand Pas Classique, gloriously danced by the company's principal dancers, Yolandi Olckers and Thoriso Magongwa. Kitty Phetla, the company's tall other principal dancer, is the lilac fairy from Sleeping Beauty; her long legs and arms make the stage seem small. She choreographs and teaches for the company and, like Olckers and Magongwa, has been with it since she was 10.
The Russian showpiece Gopack, featuring two aspirants, Bathembu Myria and Thabani Ntuli, and Le Corsaire, again featuring two aspirants, Carmen Harris and Andile Ndlovu, are delicately and emotively danced.
The full company comes out for Markitenka and, in wonderful costumes, dances the ballet that was first performed in London in 1844, with exuberant movements.
But it is after the interval, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, that the dancers really have a ball. With Magongwa dancing Puck in a playful lime green costume and Olckers dancing Titania, the queen of the fairies, in a pure white bodysuit and orange wig, and the company dancers in colourful, impish costumes as fairies, the stage comes alive with their whimsical movements.
Olckers makes it look like the most natural thing in the world to be doing lots of things on the tips of her toes. And Magongwa flies through the air with such ease, as if he has wings.
Ballet Theatre Afrikan has been training dancers in Johannesburg since 1996 and is the only ballet school in the country producing black dancers of world-class standard, says administrative director Paula Kelly. They are given a thorough training in ballet before moving on to contemporary, jazz, Spanish and Afrofusion, which they dance with equal professionalism.
The company has already been able to give an elegance and confidence to its new black dancers.
Hooked on Classics runs until 26 November at the University of Johannesburg Theatre, with evening performances at 7.30pm and matinees at 3pm. Booking is at Computicket.
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