Help to save the Cape Town City Ballet

Save CT City Ballet

Article and appeal by our Events Editor, Tania Stephenson: Waiting for my adult bal­let class to start on Monday even­ing I watched four young girls for the last 20 minutes of their class. These young ladies can’t be older than 13 and I watch as they eagerly put on their Pointe shoes which are glisten­ing in brand new pink satin. They tie up the rib­bons with such care and eager­ness I am imme­di­ately taken back to the day when I put on my first pair of pointes.

Ballet has always been a part of my life. I was a little girl of three or four years when I was first intro­duced to bal­let — my sis­ter had already star­ted to dance and it was always excit­ing going to watch her class with my mom and I eagerly anti­cip­ated the day when I would put on my own leo­tard and tights to join a class ...

The stu­dio in Mowbray is imprin­ted in my mind, it was just behind the Starke Ayres Nursery in Mowbray and had a red con­crete ver­anda lead­ing to a heavy wooden door. We used to play 'on-on' and 'red rover' on that ver­anda while wait­ing for class to begin and after class if our par­ents were a bit late col­lect­ing us. These are such happy times for me and many friend­ships were forged. (That's me in the pho­to­graph, wait­ing to do my bal­let exam, age 6!).

I can remem­ber the square room of the stu­dio with one full wall of mir­rors, the big, black metal bar where many hours of prac­tise were spent, the piano which would both be a source of musical accom­pani­ment as well as a goal of leg height for my grand battement’s at the bar. The old, floral couch where mom’s could sit and watch the class and my favour­ite part of all the beau­ti­ful sprung wooden floor. Pure per­fec­tion as a stu­dio and some of my hap­pi­est times were spent in that space.

There was always a goal, be it an exam or con­cert or a per­sonal one — triple pirou­ettes, it was a pas­sion that has stuck with me for my entire life and I don’t think this is some­thing that will change. I remem­ber my bal­let teacher tak­ing me up to the UCT school of dance for a present­a­tion to the stu­dents, in my youth I was very flex­ible and I remem­ber show­ing these real ballerina’s how I could  manip­u­late my body with ease into the splits. It was a proud moment and a spe­cial one. It was my first taste of pro­fes­sional dancers.

I wanted to see more of these beau­ti­ful ladies and was able to when my mom took me to count­less num­ber of bal­lets at both the Baxter Theatre and Artscape (then Nico Malan). Watching CAPAB per­form was always a magical exper­i­ence. My favour­ite bal­let was Copelia and I remem­ber the beau­ti­ful cos­tumes and lyr­ical music. I can’t even remem­ber the num­ber of bal­lets I have seen in my life­time and I can’t even ima­gine the pos­sib­il­ity of not being able to see a bal­let per­formed by one of the tal­en­ted dan­cers of the Cape Town City Ballet (CTCB).

However it is with a heavy heart that I write this art­icle. It has been in the news this week that the Ccape Town City Ballet is facing clos­ure due to the lack of funds. This will be a tragedy for our city if we lose this com­pany that has such a long history.

The UCT Ballet Company was foun­ded by Dulcie Howes in 1934 and the corps de bal­let was made up of stu­dents of the UCT bal­let school with the prin­ciple roles per­formed by staff mem­bers and pro­fes­sional dan­cers. The com­pany grew with sup­port from the Performing Arts Council and the dir­ec­tion of David Poole. CAPAB was hugely suc­cess­ful and enjoyed almost unlim­ited funding.

In 1994 gov­ern­ment fund­ing was no longer provided and CAPAB became a non profit organ­isa­tion and then became known as the Cape Town City Ballet under the dir­ect­or­ship of Elizabeth Triegaardt. Veronica Paeper was the artistic dir­ector until her retire­ment in 2005, I can remem­ber watch­ing many of her ballets.

The com­pany is now made up of approx­im­ately 25 dan­cers and has the dif­fi­cult task of rais­ing their own funds. Without your help Cape Town may no longer have its own bal­let company.

SA-Venues.com have donated R5000.00 on behalf of Tania Stephenson to the emer­gency fund for the Cape Town Ciy Ballet. We chal­lenge other Travel Websites and Travel com­pan­ies to make a dona­tion ... please make a dona­tion, no mat­ter how big or small, to keep the Cape Town City Ballet alive for the next gen­er­a­tions of young baller­inas to aspire to.

Appeal:
The Cape Town City Ballet and I are appeal­ing to you the pub­lic to keep this art alive in Cape Town. They are ask­ing for dona­tions to the emer­gency fund for the imme­di­ate sur­vival of the CTCB. All dona­tions will be greatly appre­ci­ated and used to keep the com­pany going. There are many ways you can help. Even if you are an indi­vidual you can make a difference.

Firstly we need to sup­port this art form, so make sure you know of the upcom­ing per­form­ances and book tick­ets to go and watch the shows (we will do our best to keep you informed of upcom­ing per­form­ances). These dan­cers work extremely hard to put on fant­astic per­form­ances for you night after night and need your sup­port. Encourage your friends and fam­ily to come along with you and why not spend a little extra to attend the gala per­form­ance. Poetry In Motion will be per­formed from 6–15 May 2010 at the Artscape Opera House and is a new work which encom­passes poetry, dance, the spoken word, visu­als and musical accom­pani­ment — it will take you on a jour­ney of life, love, loss and celebration.

Other options include spon­sor­ing a dan­cer for a year, spon­sor media, cos­tumes, music and so much more. Your help is needed. Come on South Africa — if you are a fan of dance, arts, music and cul­ture or you know of a little girl with the dream of becom­ing a baller­ina one day you should do some­thing to rem­edy this situ­ation — together we can make a dif­fer­ence and keep the Cape Town City Ballet on the stage.

SA-Venues.com have donated R5000.00 on behalf of Tania Stephenson to the emer­gency fund for the Cape Town Ciy Ballet. We chal­lenge other Travel Websites and Travel com­pan­ies to make a dona­tion ... please make a dona­tion, no mat­ter how big or small to keep the Cape Town City Ballet alive for the next gen­er­a­tions of young baller­inas to aspire to.

How to make a dona­tion:
Download the doc­u­ment from the Cape Town City Ballet web­site with the details on how to to make a dona­tion here.
Visit the web­site ded­ic­ated to assist­ing CTCB at http://www.savecapetowncityballet.co.za/ and make a dona­tion. (You could even win a prize if you donate via their website).