Letter from South Africa.

[Editor's note: Roslyn Sulcas is a Dance Magazine Paris correspondent. She was born in South Africa.]

CAPE TOWN--Ever since Nelson Mandela was freed, mutterings have been heard about the probable demise in the new South Africa of the "elitist" arts: ballet, opera and classical music. Like most of the other gloomy prognostications about South Africa's future, it seems unlikely that such an event will come to pass in quite such an absolute fashion. Nevertheless, the once-lavish budgets of the four existing provincial performing arts councils, which control the allocation of funds to drama, opera and dance companies around the country, have diminished steadily over the last five years, and are due to face further reductions of around 22 to 30 percent this year.

This is bad news for the five state-funded dance companies, but even worse is the revelation that ACTAG, a task group set up by the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, is about to recommend that only one central ballet company retain state funding. This would mean that two of the three ballet companies (Capab in Cape Town, Pact in Pretoria, and Playhouse Dance Company in Durban) and both contemporary companies (Cape Town's Jazzart and Pretoria's Pact Dance) would have to find money from provincial and corporate sources or disband. Since the provinces have smaller budgets than the Ministry of Arts, and are under pressure to reallocate funds to community projects and nontraditional art, the existing companies would have to be lucky or extremely wily to keep subsidies at current levels. On the corporate front, there are no tax incentives to encourage arts sponsorship.

If ACTAG's propositions are accepted without amendment, the implications for dance in South Africa are depressing. While three state-funded ballet companies may seem generous for the third world, South Africa is a big place, and the putative national company reportedly would not tour. The companies are also very different, with Capab performing a great deal of work by its artistic director, Veronica Paeper, Pact offering a broader classical repertoire, and the much-smaller Playhouse Dance Company (formerly Napac) staking out a more experimental ground.

Since no specific city has been earmarked for a centralized company, audiences in most of the country would probably be almost entirely deprived of classical dance.

"It's very scary," says Paeper. "Dancers' salaries are already terribly low"--a corps de ballet member earns about $300 per month after deductions--"and they work in the face of great uncertainty about their future." Like Pact Ballet and the Playhouse Dance Company, Capab is planning budgets and programs for forthcoming seasons, grimly hoping it will have a role in the new artistic order.

All three ballet companies are trying to establish a community role for themselves that will persuade the powers that be of their indispensability: Capab dancer Philip Boyd now works almost full-time in the black townships, teaching ballet to children who have neither the money nor the logistical possibility of coming into town for lessons. Pact has recently opened a school, with an eye to finding black students and to evolving into a state-supported national ballet school which would feed into the company Durban's Playhouse Dance has chosen a more populist identity, with a racially integrated company of sixteen, and a vibrant, contemporary repertoire that tries to draw on local choreography: "We are looking for a South African dance identity," says artistic director Mark Hawkins. Playhouse has a training company, Siwela Sonke, and community outreach programs.

These companies were long unrecognized and unsupported officially in South Africa, and it is only in the last few years that they have achieved recognition. An even more important consequence of acceptance of the ACTAG proposals is the lack of provision for these state-subsidized contemporary companies, and the broader implications for the art. Despite efforts being made by ballet companies to reach disadvantaged audiences and recruit black pupils to their schools, audiences for classical dance are still very white, and there are strong arguments to be made for reallocating money to areas in which more people might participate.

Contemporary dance was for a long time an indirect vehicle for political commentary in South Africa, and has historically attracted far greater numbers of nonwhite dancers, choreographers and spectators. Ironically, ACTAG's proposals seem set to rein-state ballet as an exclusive activity in the new South Africa, and to marginalize the role of contemporary dance.

Paradoxically, dance in all its forms has emerged as the most vibrant, promising, and accessible artistic domain in the country. In some ways, this is not surprising: watching this year's FNB Vita Dance Umbrella was to realize just how much dancing is a natural and spontaneous activity for many South Africans, growing out of every imaginable circumstance--funerals, weddings, the harsh realities of mine work, and the gangster culture of the townships. The Umbrella offered a wonderful look at a spectrum of dance as diverse as the South African population: from belly dancing to ballet, jazz to contemporary, Indian, Spanish and African dance forms (like gumboot dances and the infectious rhythms of slick, synchronized Mapantsula groups--like tap crossed with hip-hop). [See Reviews, page 83]

Also illustrating the health of dance here was the realization, during Dance Umbrella, of how many informal dance groups are out there, and how many dance pioneers there must be, working amidst appalling conditions to transform the lives of their students. The sight of six-year-olds from impoverished parts of the country performing with such energy, joy and ability is a wonderfully encouraging sign for the future of dance. You don't have to persuade South African children to take up dancing.

Giving money to community arts groups is an evident necessity, but providing educational and professional structures for future artists is a longer-term need that might be harder to justify in the present climate. These are vital issues for the future of the arts in South Africa and will have resounding implications in years to come: will the government see beyond the supposed divisions between first-world and third-world arts, Eurocentrism and Afrocentrism, subsidies and development?

The tone taken by Minister of Arts Ben Ngubane is certainly a balanced and reasonable one. He has qualified the established arts as part of South African cultural heritage, and as worthy of preservation. Whether he and the government can reconcile the political and artistic demands of so many different groups in a way that satisfies most parties remains, however, to be seen.