South Africa’s news ballet company, Cape Ballet Africa, is giving expression to choreographer November’s latest bold works
Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.On point: The South African-born dancer Mthuthuzeli November incorporates his experiences of township life into his ballet choreography. Photo: Helena Fagen
Before ballet, he danced to kwaito in the streets of Zolani, the township where he grew up on the outskirts of Ashton in the Western Cape. He often danced outside taverns where people would throw money at his feet. “I never danced for money, though, I just loved what the music did to my body.” Fiona Sutton, who ran a ballet-in-the-townships outreach programme, was his first instructor; she taught him classical technique without discouraging his love of other dance cultures. November, who last month turned 31, says he was never directed to suppress his love of kwaito nor to abandon the moves he’d gleaned from the streets.
Within a year, he choreographed his first work for the company, and in 2017 he was commissioned to create two new works for a Cape Town dance company. One of these,That dance piece has now become the basis for a new work, Chapter Two, that November has created as part of, a triple bill that’s the inaugural production of Cape Ballet Africa, founded earlier this year.
He believes that if he’d remained in South Africa, he might not have achieved the natural African-classical fusion that’s become discernible in his work. November believes he’s edging towards a personal style that’s centred on his love of two different, but not incompatible, dance worlds. He wants to incorporate a diversity of dance practices and make ballet more accessible.
Once this feeling is aroused, his work in the rehearsal room centres on a desire to chase that feeling — the work becomes an attempt to capture that feeling in movement.
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