While Europe and America have been running out of steam, searching for something innovative and different but too often coming up with an old formula merely presented in a more shocking way, South Africa has been dancing down its own path. Isolated from the rest of the world during the apartheid era, it was forced to draw on its own heritage for a way of expressing the bitterness, violence and hope of a new generation. Many South African companies and individual dancers and choreographers are now being invited to perform in festivals throughout Europe, Australia and America, and they could well have a re-generating effect on world dance. Out of Africa could well come the new ideas, the new body language and the new enthusiasm to revitalise the old. Any visitor interested in the arts should take a hop and a skip along to a theatre, community hall, park or even a street corner in order to see what's jumping.
Classical ballet is possibly the most easily identified and certainly the most easily sourced.
Both were formed more than 30 years ago and have built up formidable reputations for dancing excellence and high production values. Each has the benefit of full orchestral accompaniment. Their repertoires are predominantly based on the classics, ranging from Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty to more recent works by a wide canon of choreographers such as Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine and Choo San Goh. The Cape Town company also has in repertoire a number of ballets by past and present artistic directors such as David Poole and Veronica Paeper.