Soccer player’s game on pointe after stealth stint in ballet class
FANCY FOOTWORK: Footballer and ballet dancer Daniel Gatonye during rehearsal with the University of Johannesburg Ballet Theatre BRAZILIAN footballers make their game look like the samba, but Johannesburg midfielder Daniel Gatonye didn’t hit a hot Latino nightclub when he sought to improve his skills on the soccer field.
For nearly a year, the 23-yearold secretly swapped his soccer boots for a pair of ballet slippers. The poise and strength he gained in the studio soon transformed his game on the pitch.
On Friday night he took to the stage for the first time during a dance gala at the University of Johannesburg.
“I was really excited but a little nervous. It was my first time on stage,” said Gatonye, who lives with his family in the eastern suburb of Kensington.
The Bruma Lakers soccer player has had no choice but to come clean about his secret studio sessions.
“There’s a body in there that cries out: ballet dancer!” said his dance teacher, Dr Catherine Botha, a Royal Academy of Dance graduate.
It was the screensaver of a male dancer on Botha’s computer on campus — where she teaches philosophy — that first caught the soccer jock’s eye.
Botha said Gatonye had taken to ballet well — he “has a lovely line” and is willing “to try tough jumps”.
BA graduate Gatonye said the journey towards the perfect pirouette had not been as easy as he expected it to be.
“I thought if girls in pink tutus do it, it can’t be that difficult,” he said, but after the first class he could not move for three days.
“I was in pain!” He persevered and it paid off — especially on the soccer field.
Coach Duncan Tilley said: “I’ve known Dan for quite a while and he didn’t seem like the type of guy to do ballet.”
However, the coach has noticed that the player’s balance has been improving on the field.
“There’s a lot of similarity in the movements of football and ballet,” Tilley said.
Gatonye’s mother, Mary, was stunned when she first learnt about her son’s ballet classes.
“I thought: ‘What came to your mind when you decided on ballet?’ ” she said.
But now “I’m very happy. It has shown me the guy he is on the inside.”
Gatonye has no plans to hang up his soccer boots. He does, though, have his heart set on merging his two passions.
“I do want to carry on for now. I also want to bring it to schools as a way of improving soccer.”
I thought if girls in pink tutus do it, it can’t be that difficult