A love story and 25 years of Joburg Ballet

‘Giselle’, 25 years later with Joburg Ballet. Picture: Supplied Joburg Ballet celebrates a quarter of a century this year and comes full circle with its genesis and birthday show. Giselle, the classic ballet love story, was the company’s first production, and now the show marks a major milestone.

The company has weathered funding squeezes, theatre closures over the pandemic and a fickle public, but it’s still here, producing breathtaking ballet.Gisellewill run from 12-15 February at theJoburg Theatre. Producer Angela Malan is a South African-born former ballerina who danced internationally before returning home as a principal dancer and later becoming a coach and producer at the company. And while she said that bums on seats are sometimes a challenge for ballet, the flipside is that few other art forms share a similar universality.

Ballet does not need words. “It is communicating with every person sitting in the audience,” she said. “Whether they’re speaking English or Afrikaans or Zulu or Italian or Spanish, they understand what you say.” Giselleis a case in point.

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The story is easy to follow and tells of a young peasant girl who falls in love, discovers she has been deceived, loses her sanity and dies, only to return as a spirit who ultimately protects the man who wronged her. It’s Valentine’s month, too, after all. Malan said it’s about time that ballet is revived in South Africa and that audiences return to the theatre en masse.

She said that post-Covid numbers remain lacklustre compared to previous years. “There is nothing like a live performance,” she said. “It’s a once-off, in a way, and gives energy like no streamed show or movie ever could. There’s just something special about it.” The unwavering faith in the power of the stage is shared by Karen Beukes-MacDonald, one of the company’s founding dancers and a former principal who later also served as artistic director.

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