No Durban run for Spartacus
EARLY in 2013, the South African National Dance Trust (SANDT) announced that, alongside veteran choreographer Veronica Paeper, it was to stage the full length ballet of Spartacus and would involve some rather famous South African dancers living and working abroad.
Chief among these would be Dutch-based Nederlands Dans Theater 3’s South African- born David Krugel. This Spartacus would be different and would mix both local and international dancers with a host of student dancers from the three proposed cities – Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.
It was to be a massive undertaking and would also begin to imagine its narrative and context for a South African audience, thus the SANDT naming its project A Spartacus of Africa. Perhaps the rich history of Africa’s colonisation and the ballet’s own story of a slave who rises up against his Roman masters held resonance with the organisers?
The debates about whether the form of ballet, a legacy of the self same colonial history that brought Africa slavery, can actually effectively speak back to the narratives of enslavement, is a moot point, as the Durban leg of this huge-scale production has been cancelled.
Durban’s ballet fraternity is in an uproar and it has been a shadowy business trying to find out the real reason for the cancellation. The Cape Town and Joburg seasons remain, but Durban has been dropped.
It is the 80 trainee dancers selected for the production who are most upset as they have been eager to experience sharing a stage with some world-class ballet dancers. Of all things about this project, this is the avenue that most captured my attention – the chance to grow local dancers.
At best, however, the SANDT has been cagey in answering my questions about the Durban cancellation, simply quoting “financial constraints” and “circumstances beyond our control”.
The finances I get. mounting this kind of work, with international guests, must be really prohibitive, but I am still battling to find out what lies behind the phrase “circumstances beyond our control”. I had really hoped for more information from the SANDT; for a little peek into why finances and theatre partnerships are intact for Johannesburg and Cape Town, but not for Durban?
Also, given most of the creative team are formally Durbanites and that one of the leads is a Durban dancer, the cancellation of the Durban leg is strange.
In asking the Playhouse, via the arts manager, to comment on its own processes with the SANDT, I was sent a timeline of events around Playhouse and SANDT negotiations, and what appears to be an ongoing back and forth around the nature of the potential partnership for A Spartacus of Africa.
Between March and August 2013, the SANDT appears to have applied for an “in-association” partnership for the 2014-5 creative year. According to the Playhouse, however, in October 2013, the SANDT requested that its proposal be deferred for consideration for the 2015-6 year. I am interested in why this request for deferment came, but, again, the SANDT has not given reasons.
The Playhouse, in October 2013, indicated to the SANDT that they were busy settling their 2014-5 arts plans and were not in a position, as yet, to make a commitment to the production as far ahead as the 2015-6 financial year.
At the end of January, the SANDT advised the Playhouse that it could not afford to bring Spartacus to the Playhouse.
The SANDT is hoping to take a slightly scaled down version of A Spartacus of Africa to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2016 and is looking to extend this run to the Playhouse as well.
From my side, I hope it happens – mostly for those 80 young dancers and because it has been a long time since I have had the pleasure of sitting through a full-length ballet.
My palate grows tired of the fast-food versions of “excerpts” that the 12th cast of the Bolshoi bring to Durban each year. Added to which, I am a home-grown kind of gal and would love to see Durban dancers up there in their pointe shoes.