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The world of classical ballet seems to be the last place you would find a young black man — but Andile Ndlovu is changing that.
From Johannesburg’s Ennerdale township, Ndlovu first came to national notice with his performance of Basilio in the South African Ballet Theatre’s production of Don Quixote.
He was the first black man to have played the role on a local stage.
“It is a physically demanding role — you have to be a real virtuoso dancer to do that,” says the ballet theatre’s Samantha Saevitzon, “but Andile brought the house down. ”
Ndlovu, 19, is among a fraction of black men performing in local ballet — but he is quickly becoming its fastest rising star.
This week, South African TV viewers will see him in a new Pop Idol-style TV show called Dance, Dance, Dance — while he is considering job offers from two of the US’s leading ballet companies: the Washington Ballet and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Asked what he thinks has distinguished him from his mostly white fellow dancers, he says: “My background was very different. They didn’t have to compete in the townships — where you compete at everything.”
The incomprehension he has faced from his own community, over his chosen vacation, has drawn comparisons with Billy Elliot, the film about a boy from an English mining town who pursues ballet dancing to the amazement of family and friends.
But in South Africa there is the added dimension of race.
“Twenty years ago, someone like Ndlovu wouldn’t even have been allowed inside the theatre ,” says Saevitzon.
With the dismantling of apartheid, a few ballet outreach programmes were introduced in some townships and that was the only chance that Ndlovu needed.
The world of classical ballet seems to be the last place you would find a young black man — but Andile Ndlovu is changing that.
From Johannesburg’s Ennerdale township, Ndlovu first came to national notice with his performance of Basilio in the South African Ballet Theatre’s production of Don Quixote.
He was the first black man to have played the role on a local stage.
“It is a physically demanding role — you have to be a real virtuoso dancer to do that,” says the ballet theatre’s Samantha Saevitzon, “but Andile brought the house down. ”
Ndlovu, 19, is among a fraction of black men performing in local ballet — but he is quickly becoming its fastest rising star.
This week, South African TV viewers will see him in a new Pop Idol-style TV show called Dance, Dance, Dance — while he is considering job offers from two of the US’s leading ballet companies: the Washington Ballet and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Asked what he thinks has distinguished him from his mostly white fellow dancers, he says: “My background was very different. They didn’t have to compete in the townships — where you compete at everything.”
The incomprehension he has faced from his own community, over his chosen vacation, has drawn comparisons with Billy Elliot, the film about a boy from an English mining town who pursues ballet dancing to the amazement of family and friends.
But in South Africa there is the added dimension of race.
“Twenty years ago, someone like Ndlovu wouldn’t even have been allowed inside the theatre ,” says Saevitzon.
With the dismantling of apartheid, a few ballet outreach programmes were introduced in some townships and that was the only chance that Ndlovu needed.