Dancescape South Africa (REF: 168-724 NP) Public Benefit Organization No. 930055804 2 Buitekant Street, Montagu, 6720 Western Cape, South Africa http://dancescapesouthafrica.org.za/ mr.mitya@gmail.com 078 295 7879 / 023 614 3682 Director: Mitya Sargeant 4th Quarter Report for Dancescape South Africa October to December 2018 Daily dance classes continued during school term times throughout October to December 2018 (3.00pm 6.00pm Venue Zolani Hope Centre Mantlane Road Zolani Ashton) engaging children in beginner and senior dance sessions. We continue to facilitating dance classes in Ashbury at the Ashbury Civic Centre initiated and in collaboration with the RAD Foundation. Dancescape South Africa (DSA) was able, through the kind donations of individuals and organizations to employ 2 full time resident teachers. We were also able to provide stipends for 4 trainee teachers and pay for the services of a director / administrator and a Public Relations Officer. Without financial support we would also be unable to tend to the day to day running costs. We thank all who have made it possible to preserve the Fiona Sargeant Legacy and to uplift the disadvantaged youth of our country through dance. October 2018: Alfonzo Freemantle was guest teacher in October: In early October Alfonzo Freemantle came to guest teach for a week. He worked with his usual intensity and choreographed several short pieces
which we plan to perform soon. Many of our senior students were away at this time but it gave an opportunity for our less experienced dancers to shine. Above and below: Alfonzo Freemantle at work with the DSA students
Thimna Ndwe teaches in Cape Town: At the time of Alfonzo s visit Thimna, who is one of our trainee teachers, travelled to Cape Town, Gugulethu to teach at the Gugulethu Arts and Leadership project for that week. These students were preparing for a performance at the Baxter Theatre later in the week. Thimna told me that the students worked in only contemporary and African styles of dance and she taught ballet classes to the group. She was mentored during her stay by Olwethu Katase who is a student of Kristine Elliot. She also managed to attend a performance of dance at the Artscape Theatre. Three Dancescape South Africa dancers perform for Karen Butler in Cape Town: Karen Butler has over the last few months been working with Ayakhanya Mase, Anele Bizwaphi and Lutho Zwedala on her school production which took place on the 19th and 20th of October at the Bergvliet High School. Earlier in that week they were also involved with the Dances for Dancers program at the Artscape Theater. Lutho Zwedala auditions for CAPA and Three of our senior girls receive pointe shoes. On Saturday the 13th of October we started out very early from Zolani to get Lutho Zwedala to his audition at the Cape Academy of Performing Arts. He spent most of the day doing various classes and only finished at 3pm that afternoon. The audition was closed to the public. Milisa Mathiso, Analo Mafuya and Sibabalo November joined us on this trip to Cape Town. After dropping Lutho off at the CAPA school in Tokai I drove the girls to Ballet World in Rosebank. They were treated like professional dancers and spent about 2 hours fitting pointe shoes. DSA would like to say a massive thank you to Louise Kent and her staff for such wonderful service and for donating the shoes so freely to our dancers. We are most grateful. It is wonderful to see some of our dancers starting the magical journey of dancing on pointe. Thanks again Ballet World.
Dancescape South Africa performs for the elderly in Montagu: On the 22nd of October DSA was invited to perform at a function held for the elderly at the NG Kerk Hall. It was a privilege and pleasure to dance for the
residence of Huis Uitvluct. We chose to dance just one piece from our repertoire called Are You Ready. We were warmly received and the audience enjoyed the performance. Thank you Huis Uitvluct for the invitation.
November 2018: This month has been a busy month for me as there has been much to do in preparation for the performance called A Festive Celebration. We are working in collaboration with Montagu-Ashton Tourism to show case the work that we do on the 8th of December at the KWV Building in Montagu. Administrative tasks such as booking the venue, booking transport, posters, advertising and a number of other taskes had to be dealt with. My hope is that we will get a large audience to appreciate the hard work that the dancers and staff of Dancescape South Africa have put in throughout the year. It s also a celebration as much has been achieved over the last year. The dancers received numerous awards at the Montagu Youth Arts Festival, including the best dance entry of the festival 2018. DSA also received the Mayoral Tourism Award for the Best Special Project of 2018. In October Lutho Zwedala auditioned for a place at the Cape Academy of Performing Arts. We are delighted to say that his audition was successful and will be joining Lihle Mfene who will be attending his second year of studies. We will continue to support both young men with their living, accommodation and transport costs. I would once again like to thank all those who have made donations and contributions to our organization and who have made it possible for the project to survive and for our rural
disadvantaged children the opportunity to study further and to pursue careers in the performing arts. On the ground and in the studio this month has been a little quieter as November is exam month. Many of the students did not attend classes regularly as they took time out to study. DSA believes that our student s academics are very important and we encourage our student to at least pursue their Matric Certificate. Not having all the kids available to rehearse the upcoming show has however proved to be difficult for us. Only in the final week of November did we start to conduct proper rehearsals. The performance will include a number of pieces already in the repertoire but one large piece called Thoughts at a rehearsal will be performed for the first time. It s a collaboration of choreography by Guest teachers, the resident teachers and myself. I compiled several of these pieces together to tell a story of the thoughts of the dancers at a rehearsal. I hope it will be enjoyed by all. Patricia Chimanga continues to do great work in the townships building bridges between DSA and the local communities. Patricia presents the project to the community and the numbers of young children attending classes for the first time continue to grow. Above: The baby class continues to grow in numbers in November.
December 2018: This month was all about our end of year performance called A Festive Celebration which took place at the KWV Building in Montagu on the 8th of December. We collaborated with Montagu-Ashton Tourism who provided financial support for the show. Money for posters, backing boards, transport and the printing of flyers, tickets and posters was received from the Montagu-Ashton Tourism and we would like to thank Mareletta and the team there for making this possible.
When not putting up posters and trying to market the performance the team got very busy with rehearsing all the pieces in the program. Our deepest desire was to have all the students dance and perform at their best. It was a tough final week for the dancers as we prepared for the performance. Unfortunately some of the dancers could not attend the final week of rehearsals due to a variety of reasons. We had to work really hard to fill these gaps but managed to do so for the final show. Other challenges that we had to deal with had to do with the Eskom Load shedding program. Having been told by the local municipality that load shedding would take place at the time of our performance, we had to make contingency arrangements. However on the night of the performance there were, thankfully, no power outages.
The performance went very well and we managed to showcase our dancers and the DSA project to a delightful audience.
DSA gives awards to some of our dancers: Above: Most improved female dancer goes to Osiphayo Peter Above: Most improved male dancer goes to Siyolise Zwedala Above: Most committed female dancer goes to Analo Mafuya Above: Most committed male dancer goes to Aphiwe November This year we introduced 2 awards to honor students who have worked hard and shown the commitment that we want from our students. In early December at our final rehearsal session we presented these awards to the winners. There were 2 categories: Most improved dancer Most committed dancer
Each category had both a male and female recipient. A hearty congratulation to this year s winners. Once again we thank you for taking the time to read this report. Please visit our website at: http://dancescapesouthafrica.org.za/ and follow us on social media. Mitya Sargeant (CEO, and Director Dancescape South Africa)