Educational Media Reviews Online

Guguletu Ballet is the inspiring story of how a couple of white professional dancers came into a black South African township in 1992 and started a dance program for the children. Philip Boyd, the director of the program, now called Dance for All, and Phyllis Spira, a former soloist with the Royal Ballet, together work with the children of the black townships. For the children, the dance program provides a safe and creative after school program. It makes them feel good and keeps them off the dangerous streets. For some of the students, who are exceptionally talented, there are scholarships that will take them out of the townships into a high school in the Cape Town suburbs. Even in post apartheid South Africa, there is still a certain cachet in having an association with a white person, which has made it easier for the Boyd and Spira to attract and retain their students. At the same time, these eloquent students make it abundantly clear that they are proud of their work as ballet dancers and hold their teachers in great affection. A charming vignette about Sub-Saharan Africa, Guguletu Ballet is marred only by the blurred quality and harsh colors of the footage of the dancers’ year end performance.