A dancer’s leap from Soweto to Spartacus
Andile Ndlovu is back home from the US to star in a reimagined version of the legendary gladiator story, writes
WHEN Andile Ndlovu returns to South Africa from the US later this month to dance in A Spartacus of Africa, he cannot wait to eat his mother’s chicken curry.
“That’s when I know I am home,” says Ndlovu, a member of The Washington Ballet.
Ndlovu grew up in Pimville, SWORDPLAY: Tamás Krizsa, left, Jared Nelson, Jonathan Jordan and Andile Ndlovu in ’Petite Mort’
OVER the next two weeks the international film business will descend on Cannes for the most important film festival and market in the world.
Every filmmaking country puts up a booth and sticks up film posters in the vast hall under the Lumière Theatre. The doors swing open on May 13 and vendors will showcase their local produce to international sales companies, TV channels and distributors.
Upstairs, twice nightly, the red carpet is populated with filmmakers and actors who have been invited to present their new work in the official competition.
They arrive, proud to be in the running for what is arguably filmmaking’s most valuable prize — the Palme d’Or.
Many, if not most, of the delegates who spend all day snake- Soweto, and Ennerdale, south of Johannesburg. Although dance runs in his family, his first foray into dance started out as a barter deal between him and his older sister.
“My sister did Latin American dancing, like my mom, but I never wanted to do it. My sister wanted me to be her partner and she would actually do my chores for me if I came with her to class. It was there that I discovered I had a talent for dance and fell in love with it,” he says.
At 14, Ndlovu was introduced to ballet by Patricia Paleman, his Latin American teacher. He auditioned for a ballet scholarship with Ballet Theatre Afrikan under Martin Schönberg, won it and accepted immediately. “Choosing ballet was a decision I made on the spot, I didn’t really think about, but it has worked out.”
It determined his career, but it was also a decision that led to relentless teasing by his peer group. “I don’t know if they were intimidated because I was able to do something they couldn’t, or if they thought I was a sissy or something,” he says. “You know . . . boys will be boys. Some of the time I would fight them, but most of the time I just carried on doing what I loved.
“It helped that I had a teacher who admired and appreciated my ability and strength in doing something that was not really an African thing to do. So I stuck to her, she was able to level my mind out.”
From Ballet Theatre Afrikan, Ndlovu joined the South African Ballet Theatre, the forerunner of Joburg Ballet. Dancing on the cusp of a changing South Africa, Ndlovu came into his own at a time when the traditional ballet stereotypes were being challenged. It was just as unusual to see a black male dancer in the SABT as it was to see a ballet dancer in Soweto.
With his heaps of talent and cheeky charisma, Ndlovu flaunted these racial and gender stereotypes with ease, making a name for himself that was as much about his dancing ability as it was about his race. But at 19 he made the decision to leave the company. “It’s been a long road. Since I was 14 I’ve often felt that ballet was forced on me and there was a lot of pressure to excel.
“I always felt that I needed to be at a certain level and I met those expectations. When I was at SABT, I was about to become a soloist and I was only 19. It was a huge decision to leave them and come to America and start from the beginning again. Making that decision has made me love what I do more and respect myself as a dancer.”
In 2008, he tied for the gold medal in the South African International Ballet Competition. Impressed with his performance, Washington Ballet director Septime Webre offered him a scholarship.
Ndlovu has been with the company for five years now, initially as a trainee, then as a fulltime dancer.
He would like to go on to bigger stages in the future.
He has also started to mull over the contribution he would like to make to South Africa as a dancer. “I never really saw myself as a role model, but my mother has always made me understand that while I may be doing this for myself or my career, there is always someone behind me who is watching me, trying to learn more.
FLYING IN: Andile Ndlovu will return from Washington for ’A Spartacus of Africa’
“A lot of the challenges I had to overcome were not just for me, but in the name of the next generation, and it is really rewarding to see how many young ballet dancers there are now in the townships. More girls than boys, but there are many more boys than before.”
Ndlovu alternates in the lead role of Spartacus with fellow Washington Ballet dancer Brooklyn Mack, who recently danced the lead in Joburg Ballet’s Swan Lake, and South African freelance dancer Casey Swales.
The story of Spartacus is about the captive king of Thrace turned gladiator turned legend for standing up to his oppressor. Inspired by the ballet Spartacus with composer Aram Khachaturian’s original score, A Spartacus of Africa is a blend of Cape Town choreographer Veronica Paeper’s classical ballet choreography and David Krugel’s contemporary African dance.
“It will be a bit stressful, but I can’t wait to do it. Veronica Paeper has outdone herself by taking an old story from one culture and turning it into an African story. That is really appealing to me. It is something that young people, even people not educated in dance, will watch, because it calls to them.”
As a production, A Spartacus of Africa is taking on its own epic proportions, with a cast of more than 100 dancers, of which 35 are professional and the rest students. The Johannesburg and Cape Town philharmonic orchestras under the baton of maestro Paul Hoskins, the music director of Rambert, Britain’s national company for contemporary dance, will accompany both seasons respectively.
‘A Spartacus of Africa’ opens at the Joburg Theatre on June 4 and runs until June 14. It opens on June 27 at Artscape in Cape Town and runs until July 7
A Spartacus of Africa is something that young people will watch, because it calls to them