The poet, John Dryden, called dancing ‘the poetry of the foot’ and Einstein said dancers are ‘the athletes of God’. And for good reason.
At their Rondebosch HQ, Cape Town City Ballet’s dancers rehearse for their first production of the company’s 90th anniversary. One moment they perform propulsive gymnastics, the next, they transform into human sculptures, motionless with raised legs ruler-straight, toes pointed skywards.
They flex and stretch, balance and spin, perform power-lifts as they hoist partners over shoulders, or hold them high overhead. Dancers toss dancers into the air and catch them again with poetic ease. Then they leap and twirl, fingers poised, calves bulging, heads at just-so angles.
And all of this with a sense of unwavering cool. Aside from a few glints of sweat, barely a hint of effort or pain registers, only broad smiles and raring-to-go enthusiasm, vim and brio despite burning muscles, old injuries and lungs on fire.
At the end of it all, when the dancers finally seem to breathe again, Canadian-born choreographer David Nixon looks momentarily satisfied with their exertions, pleased with the show’s progress. And rather than calling for a break, has them go again.
Throughout his career, Nixon has made a name for himself creating dance shows that have steered ballet into a more contemporary, genre-straddling domain. He’s known for achieving crowd-pleasing results. In the UK, where for two decades he was artistic director of Leeds-based Northern Ballet until 2021, he transformed the company into a powerhouse of innovation and box-office successes. Within 20 years, he created 13 new works including a Nazi-themed Hamlet and an ‘intergalactic’ Sleeping Beauty.
Aside from knowing how to please audiences, Nixon’s real talent has been for giving dancers what they require to be challenged and to grow. As a choreographer, his reputation has been for pushing dancers to their edge. ‘I can be quite “demanding” as a director,’ he says.
‘My work is strongly ballet-based, but also very physical. My dancers have to be fit to do this kind of work. And there’s an articulation, a cleanliness and a sophistication of movement that brings a crispness – a clarity – to what ends up on stage.’
For his inaugural production as Cape Town City Ballet’s new artistic producer, he’d chosen a show that he first completed while heading up Ohio’s BalletMet in Columbus, where he was based before moving to England. With the musical score by George Gershwin, the choreography infuses classical technique with elements of other forms, and requires incredible stamina, strength and endurance.
Nixon believes the Gershwin programme, I Got Rhythm, is a good way of loosening up a company. ‘It enables the dancers to move out of whatever style they’ve become set in,’ he said.
Despite its liberating energy, Nixon admits his work is challenging. For the company, it’s been like a lightning rod.
‘These rehearsals are a shock to the system,’ says dancer Hannah Ward, during a break. ‘We’ve got to bring a lot to the work and it’s very showy. Towards the end of a 10-minute section, you’re absolutely exhausted, and yet that’s precisely when you need to pick it up, so you need so much stamina.’
‘It’s probably one of the toughest things I’ve ever done,’ says Fanelo Ndweni, a dancer who grew up in Johannesburg. ‘I’m used to dancing either ballet or contemporary or African, but this choreography requires a mixture of styles, so it’s a real change of pace.’
If anyone knows how to facilitate that change of pace, it’s Nixon. He brings with him a wealth of understanding about where ballet is moving internationally. ‘I’ve been a director for 28 years and over time you see how things evolve. We are dancing now with more physicality, but you have to have a strong classical dance technique to do it well. Sure, it’s hard at first. But if you train your body properly and grow sufficiently strong, you can dance at this level.’
Nixon says he’s confident the Cape Town dancers are ‘on the road to where they need to be’. To help fast-track their evolution, Nixon has, along with his wife, ballet mistress Yoko Ichino, developed a training method that they’ve used for years to build dancers to a certain level. Ichino, who began her professional career with Joffrey Ballet II in 1972 and has partnered with, among others, Rudolph Nuryev, spent two weeks taking the company through a rigorous back-to-basics bootcamp in order to begin conditioning their bodies for Nixon’s choreography.
‘It was humbling,’ says Ward about Ichino’s training. ‘As you get older, your body just doesn’t necessarily respond as easily. You lose a bit of range and flexibility, so everything becomes harder to achieve. Yoko’s method has been incredibly helpful – it helps you use your body more wisely and efficiently.’
Nixon, who was himself tireless and committed during the height of his dancing career, knows the degree to which choreographers will push their dancers to get the results they envision – sometimes to the point where it’s almost inhuman.
The trick, according to veteran dancers, is to avoid becoming obsessed with pain and injury, and instead get swept up in the levity and sense of lightness that comes from performing. Most dancers tend to agree that the joy of dancing has the effect of making most of the physical hardships dissipate – at least while they are on stage. It’s a kind of resilience, a sort of pain-eliminating exhilaration that was best expressed by the great American choreographer, Merce Cunningham, who said that although dance leaves you with no physical artefact – no manuscript, no photographs – what it gives you instead is one intense, fleeting moment in which you are truly alive.
‘This art form is so demanding of you physically and emotionally,’ says Kirstél Paterson, who, while watching Giselle as a five-year-old girl, decided she wanted to dance. ‘But this is my job and this is what I love to do. And there is nothing else that compares to the way dancing on stage makes me feel. Nothing.’
‘Yes, there are disappointments,’ says Ndweni. ‘But as long as you keep pushing yourself to be the very best that you can be, there will also be incredible moments of intense joy. So, when you fall, you just have to get back up and carry on. I know I have to push through. I can’t give up because my fellow dancers aren’t giving up. They are pushing through as well.’
By Keith Bain
