Capturing the tempo
JACQUELINE Woodson, author of more than 30 titles in children’s literature, was given a hefty title of her own recently, when she was named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in America.
Woodson is the sixth writer to be honoured, awarded by the US Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader.
“It would be so great that by the end of the two-year term if people along all lines of economic class really knew the value of libraries and books in their lives,” she said.
Working toward that will involve lots of conversations with kids across the country. She hopes to spark those with her platform Reading = Hope x Change (What’s Your Equation?).
Reading can encourage kids’ hopefulness and their interest in changing the world, she said.
Woodson would like to steer people away from using labels such as “struggling” or “advanced reader”, which aren’t helpful, she said, because they “assume there is a normal”.
Her children, a son, 9, and daughter, 15, started reading at different ages and are different readers, she said.
She would like people of all ages to have help from a “village of readers”.
“It would be nice to get to that point where there’s a book for everyone.” – Washington Post
CENTURIES ago, Khoikhoi hunter-gatherers freely roamed vast semi-desert areas now called the Great and Little Karoo. Spreading approximately 400 000 square kilometres, it’s thought the word Karoo stems from the Khoikhoi word meaning desert.
Yet, this water-scarce, populationsparse region gave birth to South Africa’s first democratic president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.
As it did to heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard; surgeon Arthur Helfet; playwright/author Athol Fugard; actor Anthony Sher; abstract painter Walter Battiss; authoress EKM Dido and others.
Calvinia, 380km north-east of Cape Town, is where Marina Keet was born. In her recently published autobiography, Dame Marina Grut, as she is now, reflects warmly about her early years. She describes her loving family, walking with her father through the veld studying nature’s miracles, and her mother’s no-nonsense upbringing.
Her father’s job as a post office official involved regular transfers between towns until he rose to the position of chief superintendent of post, when the family settled in Stellenbosch.
That’s where, aged 10, the young Marina saw her first ballet class and her lifetime love affair with ballet and Spanish dance began.
Dame Marina’s autobiography is her fourth published work. Her first,
became, and still is, the most comprehensive book on the subject from 1802 to 1980. (It is, unfortunately, now out of print.) Therein lies one of the reasons why
is invaluable. While it is a refreshing personal account and doesn’t pretend to be recording history, it nevertheless relates her years growing up, learning ballet and Spanish dance, studying in Spain, teaching and her initial steps into choreography – which all fill historical gaps.
Dame Marina and I were students together and, knowing all those she writes about, makes it a wonderful trip down memory lane.
But, at the same time, would younger generations understand the impact personalities like Helen Webb, Cecily Robinson, Dulcie Howes, Jasmine Honore, Pamela Chrimes, Uys Krige, Denis Hatfield, Eve Borland, Elsa Brunelleschi, Mary Clarke, Lusillo and many others, played in our theatre and dance world?
Yet, Dame Marina’s easy, friendly writing style, punctuated by deliciously amusing anecdotes, brings to life those famous people she knew and worked with in three continents.
Descriptions of her Spanish, French, Swedish, Italian, American and English adventures and studies read like a thrilling novel.
Although trained as a classical ballet dancer, it is as a Spanish dancer, choreographer and founder member of the Spanish Dance Society that, in 1989, King Juan Carlos of Spain awarded her the title of Dame of the Order of Queen Isabel of Spain for her preservation and presentation of Spanish dance.
As a choreographer, Dame Marina excelled. Her knowledge and research led to publishing her second book in 2002,
Dame Marina is married to Danish national Mikael Grut, whose work took them to live and work in Rome and Washington DC – years which also make enthralling reading. An earlier stay in Sweden resulted in her third book,
for which she received the Carina Ari Gold Medal 2008 award from Sweden’s Princess Christina.
Over six decades as an illustrious Spanish dance authority on three continents, Dame Marina received support not only from her family, but also from innumerable equally passionate Spanish dance exponents. She never neglects to give them credit. by Book Guild Publishing,
can be ordered from www.mydancinglife.com at R182.