Cape Town City Ballet, DTZ in cultural exchange

19 Jun, 2016 - 00:06 0 Views
Cape Town City Ballet, DTZ in cultural exchange INTENSIVE — Pupils and teachers from Harare who attended the ballet workshop with Mr Robin van Wyk (kneeling far left) — Picture: Andy Roberts

The Sunday Mail

INTENSIVE — Pupils and teachers from Harare who attended the ballet workshop with Mr Robin van Wyk (kneeling far left) — Picture: Andy Roberts

INTENSIVE — Pupils and teachers from Harare who attended the ballet workshop with Mr Robin van Wyk (kneeling far left) — Picture: Andy Roberts

THE Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa), Dance Trust of Zimbabwe and Cape Town City Ballet recently collaborated to facilitate a week-long intensive workshop on ballet. Over 100 pupils from Harare’s ballet studios took part in the training workshop, which was conducted by Cape Town City Ballet’s Artistic Director, Robin van Wyk. The accelerated learning programme was the first stage of the Ballet Bouquet cultural exchange with Dance Trust of Zimbabwe’s National Ballet Academy, which was launched officially on March 26 by patron Dr Leonard Tsumba.

The ballet intensive involved daily master classes with van Wyk and rehearsals for his adaptation of the famous ballet, “The Nutcracker”. A team of local ballet teachers will continue to rehearse the pupils, working towards a final theatre performance at Reps Theatre this July entitled “Ballet Bouquet”. The production is part of the “Hifa Presents” events for 2016. The stage production of “The Nutcracker”, will feature four professional dancers from the Cape Town City Ballet as well as the cast of pupils. Excerpts from the major ballets will make up the second act, to delight theatre audiences and inspire young dancers.

Robin van Wyk began training at the Royal Academy of Dance at the age of six.

After completing his RAD dance education he furthered his studies at the UCT School of Dance, where he received his solo seal.

He went on to be contracted with NAPAC Company and PACT Ballet as a senior soloist and claimed the Nederburg Award for his outstanding performances.

In the year 2000 he was promoted to Principal Dancer at the Cape Town City Ballet marking yet another milestone in an already blossoming career. Some of the roles he has played include Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet”, Lucentio in “The Taming of The Shrew”, The Prince in “The Nutcracker”, James in “La Sylphide” and Caesar in “Cleopatra”.

He has also toured eleven countries with the production of “Cats” performing to audiences of up to 13000 spectators.

In addition to his spectacular career as a dancer, Robin is a passionate choreographer with a vision to breathe magic into classical ballet for young dancers across the region.

This collaboration grew from discussions dating back to 2012 between well-known local dancing teacher, June Cloete, and Dianne Cheesman, director at Cape Junior Ballet Company, senior lecturer at University of Cape Town School of Dance and examiner/tutor at Royal Academy of Dance. Deeply moved by the roof collapse of the National Ballet Centre four years ago and the gritty determination of the community to restore the building, Dianne encouraged Cape Town dancing teachers and friends of ballet to support the vision to keep dance alive in Zimbabwe.

The ballet intensive ended with an exciting preview of the production as the pupils performed the pieces they had learned for the team of teachers. In the closing remarks made on behalf of the Dance Trust of Zimbabwe, June Cloete thanked van Wyk and all those who had worked so hard to make this dream a reality, voicing her conviction that Ballet Bouquet will be a most enjoyable season of dance.

She echoed Robin’s belief that sound ballet training is the basis for all forms of trained dance. “If you can do ballet, you can do anything.”

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