BORN FOR BALLET
Dancing to the top
Mthuthuzeli November was 15 and captain of his school soccer team when he tried out his first ballet steps, in a church hall with uneven floorboards in Zolani, in the Boland.
Ten years later the South African choreographer and dancer has been nominated for one of the most prestigious British theatre awards: he is a 2020 Laurence Olivier Award nominee for the Best New Dance Production for Ingoma , which has successfully toured the UK, Germany and Italy.
“Mthuthu” — now at Ballet Black in London — choreographed and danced for British artist Stormzy, headlining the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts last year, which attracted a crowd of nearly 200,000.
“As a dancer, Mthuthuzeli ‘fills the space’ and creates an electric atmosphere on the stage … almost before he starts moving. His performances are always as if it were his last and are delivered with an urgency and visceral investment that is rare,” says his first professional dance teacher, Debbie Turner, CEO of Cape Town City Ballet.
For a teenager who stumbled into ballet by chance, his meteoric rise in the world of dance happens more often in movies, like Billy Elliot or Flashdance , than in real life — and it is even rarer when the new star is a dancer of colour.
Cassa Pancho (MBE) founded Ballet Black in 2001 when “no women of colour were performing in any of the UK’s ballet companies”, unlike today when a few black dancers are performing for them.
November captured the artistic director’s imagination while dancing for Ballet Central, on exchange in the UK early in 2015, and, by September, he was in Ballet Black’s studios as an apprentice.
“Mthuthuzeli is a striking and powerful performer [and] the choreographers we commission love to create movement on him. He is also a talented choreographer,” says Pancho.
When lockdown paralysed millions worldwide, the 26-year-old November created three different works interpreting what the pandemic and isolation meant to humanity: Full-out and Precipice , which have been performed this month, and the final work, Stabat Mater , which premieres tonight.
“I wanted to reflect what we are all going through, being confined in a space and how sacred it becomes and soft it makes us feel,” he says, wandering around his sunlit apartment in London.
“When I first listened to the music [for Stabat
Mater ], I got a feeling of surrender and sorrow, and when I saw the first image of a Mary there was a sense of softness, and a sense of hardness.”
Six dancers from Cape Town City Ballet were chosen for the piece and November choreographed and rehearsed with them remotely.
“At the beginning of the pandemic everything was on Zoom and I fought against it. I tend to be resistant to trends and did not want to be part of it, but I realised it is a skill and got used to working remotely,” says the maverick millennial.
“I was tentative in the beginning but when I was sent the first [clip], I thought ‘wow’ and was really proud to be part of it,” adds November, delight rising in his voice.
“You don’t have to travel across continents to create.
“I had to find a different way of creating that isn’t moving too far from what happens on stage. I had to focus a bit more on what gestures and hand movements mean, rather than moving into the space.”
Dancers were rehearsing in their kitchens, garages and living rooms, doing steps to music that would reach them slightly out of sync. November says they were proactive about checking timing with him to get it perfect.
“I had to be very precise. Dancers are good visual learners but on Zoom I had to speak a lot more than show,” he says, praising the corps of artists with whom he worked.
Turner and director Matthew Wild, who directed November in West Side Story in 2015, have been intimately involved in the production of Stabat Mater — a dance interpretation of the classical Latin lament for Mary’s sorrows — which is accompanied by Cape
Town’s Camerata Tinta Barocca baroque ensemble.
They had three studio days to rehearse and polish the production, which November choreographed remotely.
Then the 23-minute show was recorded for release, just four weeks after it was conceptualised.
The multi-award-winning dancer and choreographer thinks deeply about dance and has conversations about it going on in his head all the time, says Turner. November is never lacking fellow dancers to be his “paint” and bring his ideas to life.
“Highly experienced artists are drawn to his absolute commitment to the craft and seem to take a wonderful interest in his ongoing development,” says Turner.
His blazing talent won him a scholarship to the Cape Academy of Performing Arts in
2011 and in 2012 he won a gold medal in the contemporary category of the South
African International Ballet Competition as a junior, and in 2014 as a senior.
The year 2014 heralded further accolades: November graduated from the academy with distinction and made his debut with the Cape Dance Company as a junior under the direction of Turner.
By the time Pancho discovered him, performing with fellow South African student Londiwe Khoza on exchange from Cape Town, they were both excellent after a very good training from the academy.
“Mthuthu was still quite young, but he had so much potential that I decided to hire him with the expectation that he would grow into a more senior position within the company,” Turner says of the versatile dancer — who was quickly promoted from apprentice to junior artist to senior artist.
November says: “At first, as a South African, I did not think a company called Ballet Black was necessary but, after I moved here, I understood its significance in a world that is not accommodating.”
His contribution to choreography soared, from small works for Ballet Black’s Junior School end-ofyear performances to main-stage commissions for the company’s Barbican Theatre programme last year.
Each year the Ballet Black season begins with its new Barbican programme and Ingoma was produced for this programme, which tours the UK and Europe.
November’s younger brother also dances abroad. He was the youngest dancer to join the National Ballet of Canada and it was Siphe’s love of ballet, and wish to support his mother, that got Mthuthu to try it out.
“Siphe started going to classes with Fiona Sutton, who used to work for Dance for All, and he was doing plies and tendus and these strange moves at home, so I went along to find out more.
“Our family was quite well known for doing kwaito and street dance and I was introduced to Fiona. She thought my name was tutu, like a dress ballerinas wear, and she thought this meant I was [destined] to be a ballet dancer,” says November.
For fun he choreographed a piece for kids for their end-of-year show and, during repeated visits to the dusty hall to teach them steps, he ended up learning ballet moves himself.
“The first time I wanted to pursue dance as a profession was when Fiona took us to see a dress rehearsal of a Cape Town City Ballet production. I wanted to be in that space,” says November, who was honoured by the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees with an emerging artist award.
Besides choreographing for Ballet Black in 2016, November launched his own platform, M22 Movement Lab, to collaborate with artists of all types to create stage choreography.
Headlining the night of the famous UK Glastonbury Festival was a high point in his dazzling career. Coming from SA, he was unprepared for the huge crowd.
“That experience still feels like it didn’t happen. Even now, I think: ‘Did I actually do that?’ and I have to pinch myself … I don’t usually get nervous and it was such a positive vibe.”
Since the UK’s lifting of lockdown, November’s first live performance was Fullout , a six-minute duet, composed for the English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer competition.
Precipe was a 15-minute piece which premiered last month at the outdoor Grange Festival. “We started rehearsing this on Zoom but after three rehearsals we were able to be in the studio, socially distant and wearing masks.” Covid-19 restrictions cancelled Ballet Black’s March programme. However, they are thinking of how to bring it back to life, potentially in a digital space, says November. In real life, he’s back en pointe: stretching and gliding with Ballet Black dancers again.
November’s dream is for South Africans to see Ingoma , a work evoking the mineworkers’ strike of 1946, on stage and not only a digital version.
In 2017, the Cape Dance Company performed two pieces he choreographed for them — including SUN — the rite of passage , which he dedicated to the late Sutton — but he would most love to see Ballet Black or indeed their dancers perform Ingoma in SA.
“Ingoma is such a significant story and the work that miners do goes so unnoticed. It was a very special piece to create. It wasn’t your typical classical piece,” says November of the production that melds styles.
Besides the Olivier nomination, November has also been nominated this year for Ingoma for the National Dance Awards for emerging artist and the Black British Theatre Award for the best dance production.
“There was a lot of South African influence, a lot of me in this piece, a lot of our DNA,” says November.
“It is funny to have left home and suddenly find this very strong connection while being away from home and wanting to create works that would mean a lot for a South African audience.”
Mthuthuzeli ‘fills the space’ and creates an electric atmosphere on the stage … almost before he starts moving