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The South African Ballet Theatre is auditioning for young dancers to join its Graduate Programme, which offers a year of professional training.
BEFORE she could put on her pointe shoes and get on the professional stage, Claire Spector was dazzled by ballet dancers such as Angela Malan and Iain Macdonald at the State Theatre Ballet in Pretoria.
That was before the State Theatre Ballet was closed down in June 2000 and its professional dancers retrenched. Having started dancing at the age of four, Spector was inspired by those dancers to pursue a career in ballet.
Claire Spector
"Ballet is what I always dreamed of doing," says the 20-year-old Spector.
She made her strides in her hometown, Pretoria. In 2001, she was trained by accomplished ballerinas René Callis, Celeste Fair and Liza Fekete at the Royal Academy of Dance. She joined the Youth Dance Company of Tshwane in 2002 and appeared in a number of seasons with the company until 2005.
She's now in the corps de ballet at the South African Ballet Theatre (SABT), having completed the year-long Graduate Programme. She was picked to join the programme in 2006 after having impressed at auditions; after the programme she was promoted into the corps de ballet alongside Nicole Ferreira.
The SABT Graduate Programme is a gap year for promising dancers to spend a year, once they have completed their matric, with the company. It's a full-time programme and participants perform in the company's four annual seasons.
"You learn so much. It's not what you expect to learn," Spector says, adding that for her to grow as a ballet dancer SABT was the ultimate destination. "SABT is the only one."
Professional teachers
The graduates are taught by Malan, the senior principal dancer, and Alexei Ilin, the ballet master.
SABT's principal dancers and senior management also nurture the amateurs. The theatre counts it as a feat to have principal dancers interacting with young, upcoming dancers. It states on its website: "There are can be very few, if any, instances in world ballet where the principal dancers of a company are dedicating so much of their own private time to giving promising youngsters the benefit of their hard won skill and experience."
Spector says: "It kind of feels like a home, with all the people I grew up watching around me. It is a wonderful experience."
The teenage ballerinas and danseurs are also incorporated as a fledgling corps de ballet component of the theatre, and have the opportunity to perform in all SABT's professional productions. "Even as a graduate, you are still part of the theatre," enthuses Spector. "When you get promoted, you then get better roles [in productions]."
Auditions
Other young dancers will the have an opportunity to put themselves on the way to making a mark on the country's ballet sector, as the SABT is holding auditions for the academy on Saturday, 10 October.
The auditions will be held in its studios in Braamfontein, on Hoofdt Street, at 10am. Publicist Samantha Saevitzon says the company is expecting aspiring dancers to come from all over the country to audition. "Every year it gets bigger and bigger."
Auditioning participants will be required to prepare a short variation or solo in the classical ballet style, which will be performed by short-listed candidates.
Male and female candidates should be dressed in appropriate ballet gear - pink tights and leotards for girls and tights and T-shirts for boys to enable the SABT panel to view their work clearly, Saevitzon adds.
Female candidates also need to bring pointe shoes.
Possible contract
At the completion of the one-year course, the artistic team of SABT will evaluate the graduates' progress and accordingly, and dependent on availability, offer contracts to individual dancers. All graduates who successfully complete the course will receive a certificate to this effect.
The Graduate Programme costs R3 000 per quarter, or R12 000 for the entire year. The fees include pointe shoes, which could amount to more than R5 000.
Aspiring ballerinas and danseurs can register for the auditions by calling Edgar Moagi on 011 877 6893. They must submit a one-page curriculum vitae on the day of the audition.
In exceptional cases, where a candidate is extremely talented, SABT will offer a bursary, says Saevitzon, who describes the programme as an opportunity for amateur dancers to spend a year as professional dancers. "We are looking for homegrown talent to eventually employ on a fulltime basis."
SABT has appealed to more males to turn out for the audition, as it is facing a shortage of danseurs.
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