EXPANDING ACCESS: The Gugulethu Ballet Project
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BY CARRIE GAISER CASEY
WHEN YOU FIRST MEET Bay Area ballet teach- er Kristine Elliott, it’s impossible not to be swept off your feet by her joyous laugh. The former American Ballet Theatre solo- ist radiates generosity and kindness, like a pixie-sized Lilac Fairy. For the past thirteen years, Elliott has brought this positive spirit and her teaching expertise to an area of the world marked by racism, violence, and poverty. In the townships of South Africa, Elliott has been transforming the lives of disadvantaged children through the study of classical ballet. Like everything in South Africa, the name of Elliott’s organization, the Gugulethu Ballet Project (GBP), reflects the legacy of apartheid. “Gugulethu” means “our pride” in Xhosa, one of the languages spoken pri- marily by black South Africans. Gugulethu is also a place, a township created in the 1960s when other black quarters became overcrowded near the city of Cape Town. As Elliott explains, “People were told they had to go live there. They made the most of their neighborhood and built up a place that was theirs. And against all odds called it ‘Our Pride.’” Gugulethu is also the first township that Elliott visited, beginning in 2004 as a guest instructor for Dance For All, which serves underprivileged youth in South Africa. El- liott has traveled to South Africa every year since, with key support from the Flora Family Foundation, Arnold Rampersad at Stanford University’s Office of the Dean of Humanities, and many generous individu- als. GBP frequently partners with Bay Area dance organizations. In 2009 Elliott, with support from the Young Presidents Organi- zation, created a residency and cultural ex- change program at Stanford University for four South African dancers. And, through a travel course that Elliott instituted for the LEAP (Liberal Education for Arts Profes- sionals) program at St. Mary’s College, un- der the guidance of Claire Sheridan, about thirty dancers from around the U.S. have accompanied Elliott to South Africa since 2011. Currently GBP sponsors two dance schools in South Africa, Dancescape in Zo- lani township in the Western Cape and eYona in Khayelitsha, located in the West- ern Flats near Cape Town. The Project also funds scholarships for intensive summer study in the United States by talented South African students. Apartheid may be defunct as a govern- mental policy, but its legacy endures in the living conditions of the townships. Most of the dwellings are one room shacks with- out running water. Bathing, drinking, and cooking each require individual trips with a bucket to the town spigot. The taxi vans that serve as the main transportation for the townships’ residents cost 10 rand, no matter where you go – to the end of the line or the beginning, and they don’t give change. You can wait as long as an hour and a half for a van. Then there is the violence. Elliott recalls asking one student, Bathembu Myira, about a hole in a shirt he wore to class one day. Bathembu told her that it was the shirt his brother had on when he was caught in gang related cross-fire, shot in the heart, and killed. Given these conditions, Gugulethu Bal- let Project offers not only dance classes but material support. The organization pro- vides lunches and maintains an emergency fund for vehicle repairs, dental emergencies, and other unforeseen circumstances. Upon this foundation of dancer health and safety, Elliott teaches what she calls “life skills” through dance. “The principles inherent in the study of ballet, including self-discipline, perseverance, respect for the self and the
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Gugulethu Ballet Project Zolani Township / (top) photo by Elaine Mayson , (right) photo by Laura Blatterman
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integrity of the body, are all transferable into the daily lives of the students,” she writes. And there are other benefits to dance training. Ballet teaches cognitive skills important for child development such as count- ing, distinguishing right from left, and remembering multi-step directions. More- over, the artistic expression
ON THIS PAGE / Gugulethu Ballet Project by Carrie Gaiser Casey 4 / In Practice: Sue Li Jue by Sima Belmar 5 / Sustaining Nicaraguan Culture by Rob Taylor 6 / December Performance Calendar 9 / A Conversation with Johnnie Cruise Mercer by Benedict Nguyen 12 / Artistic Practice and the Genre Binary by Natalie Greene with Eric Garcia and Erin Mei-Ling Stuart
in ballet can be cathartic for youth living in difficult circumstances. GBP provides a refuge from, and an alternative to, the vio- lence and crime that plague South Africa’s townships. Some of the students have gone on to professional international careers with Ram- bert Dance Company, Cape Town City Bal- let, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake , and with tours of the Broadway hit The Lion King . Many have returned to South Africa to start
their own dance companies and schools, such as the aforementioned Bathembu Myira, who returned in 2015 and opened eYona in Khayelitsha township. This sum- mer, GBP sponsored two dancers, Odwa Makanda and Lwando Dutyulwa, to study at Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet summer program. Past recipients of the scholarship program have studied at Academy of Ballet in San Francisco, Zohar School of Dance in Palo Alto, Kaatsbaan International Dance
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