The Sunday Mail
Leisure Reporter —
THE Dance Trust of Zimbabwe (DTZ), formerly known as the National Ballet, will this year host a series of events to celebrate 60 years of existence and development of dance in the country.
“From March 27 to April 1, 2017; we want to stage a production to commemorate our diamond jubilee at Twin Rivers School.
“We want to include all the various forms of dance to show people our diversity as many think we are just for classical ballet,” said DTZ administrator, Eve Sranix.
Eve stated that as a trust they will be having a number of events throughout 2017 as they commemorate 60 years in the game.
“We will also be having some other productions later in the year for the younger dancers so that they too have a chance to showcase what they can bring to the table, apart from the dancing shows we will also have film screenings just to spice up the calendar.
“Another event to look out for will be a fair that we will be hosting, hopefully in May, which will see craftsman exhibiting their works. These will not be traders but the actual people who make the different crafts and these will be joined by the different dance schools from Zimbabwe.
“On the day there will be different foodstuffs available as a way to showcase the different cultures in the country, giving us the rich cultural heritage element as we celebrate 60 years,” she revealed.
Eve also said they would continue with their outreach programmes and that their year will be capped off with the staging of a classical ballet show featuring dancers from Cape Town.
“We will continue with our outreach dance programme, which engages with around 750 underprivileged children from all over the country. l am thrilled to inform you that in November we will be hosting the artistic director of the Cape Town City Ballet, Robin van Wyk and his team of dancers for yet another intriguing ballet experience.
“To all those who love classical dance, this is something to look out for as we witnessed an amazing production being staged when our friends from Cape Town were in action at Reps Theatre last year,” she added.
When The Sunday Mail Leisure visited the DTZ offices, a free class for senior dancers was being led by Leah Nelson, a Zimbabwean-born dancer, choreographer, teacher, actor, event producer and director with a passion for social change through arts.
Although the students had an amazing two-hour session gleaning from the maestro who is now based in the USA, it was her story that caught the most attention, as she expressed how she marveled seeing more African dancers being given a platform to practice and be part of the ballet dancer’s community in Zimbabwe.
“When I started developing an interest in dance during the pre-lndependence era, it was very difficult for locals, ‘Africans or coloured people’ like me, to be accepted into such platforms,” said Nelson.
She added: “It was very terrible back then because racism was at its peak and to make matters worse, we didn’t have money in our family to pay for the expensive lessons. However, my passion stirred me on.”
After enduring a lot of heartaches, she finally managed to win a competition hosted by the then National Ballet at age 18, which took her to the USA to be part of the International Choreographer’s Institute on a Rockefeller Fellowship.
Nelson says she is really happy to see more African children involved in classical dance.
“Returning home today, I am really happy to see the way things have changed over the years as we now have more black children involved in ballet dancing and the quality of their work is just phenomenal.
“I am really happy to see that we also have a number of black male dancers venturing into classical dance and are actually taking it seriously, something which was rare to see back in my teenage days when I started pursuing a career in dance,” she added.
Nelson has worked on a number of productions in the USA with artistes such as Lisa Loeb, Lil Wayne and upcoming cyberstar Jonah Marais.
She recently collaborated and choreographed Urinetown: the Musical for Macalester College and was recently commissioned to create an original contemporary dance piece at the Ordway’s Concert Hall titled “What’s Going On to Music” by Marvin Gaye.
