Tragedy strikes African troupe.

JOHANNESBURG -- Professional calamity has followed personal tragedy, as Johannesburg Dance Theatre, one of South Africa's pre-eminent modern companies, has closed its doors, not long after the violent deaths in September of two JDT dancers. The demise of the seventeen-year-old company has left a series of unanswered questions.

JDT was founded in 1980 as Equinoxe Dance Theatre by dancer-choreographers Grayham Davies, Corinna Lowry, Naomi Isaacson and Tossie van Tonder. In 1986 Equinoxe took a break from the public stage to build the Johannesburg Dance Foundation, which became a major training and education outreach resource that helped break down racial and cultural barriers erected by apartheid laws.

In 1987, JDT instituted a three-year proficiency certificate course for mainly disadvantaged dancers from the townships. The JDF Dance Centre has produced several of the country's leading black dancers and choreographers. In 1988, JDF's professional company, Johannesburg Dance Theatre, was born. Lowry left in 1996-Isaacson and van Tonder had long since departed -- and Davies became chief executive officer of JDF and artistic director of JDT, which went on to own its own premises.

The news release announcing the company's demise stressed that financial considerations were the cause, twinned with a commitment to prioritize the foundation's role as a training institution. The statement said the foundation had overreached in trying to maintain financial viability at the same time it was attempting to support a professional dance company. The release said "the consequent strain and demands experienced by JDF staff and the dancers themselves had become insupportable, especially in the stressful environment in which South Africans currently live."

Although the JDF directors said this decision was made prior to September 25, this surprise development has been overshadowed by the deaths of principal Paula Preller, 28, and Collin Myburgh, 29, a tragedy which unfolded that fall morning. in fact, within fourteen months, three JDT dancers had died violently. In July 1996, David Seperepere, like Myburgh a model graduate of the Johannesburg Dance Foundation, had hanged himself.

On September 25, the day before the beginning of JDT's annual two-week season at the Wits Theatre, while the other five dancers were onstage taking class Preller's body was discovered by Davies o the floor of the men's dressing room. She had been stabbed to death -- a knife lay nearby. Davies, in a subsequent news conference, said he noticed a trail of blood and Myburgh, his shirt covered in blood, standing near the dressing room mirrors. Myburgh bolted, according to Davies. Also discovered on the scene, according to police, was a note allegedly written by Myburgh; the police have not divulged its contents.

According to police, Myburgh leapt from the building and disappeared. The story and the ensuing manhunt made national headlines. Myburgh's body was discovered a week later by a street cleaner who noticed the corpse hanging from shoelaces over a storm drain 200 meters from the theater.

Davies said that Myburgh was receiving counselling and had asked to be released from his contract. A few days prior to Prelle's death, in the theater lighting box, Myburgh informed him that he had changed his mind and proceeded to punch Davies several times, according to Davies.

Police have refused to speculate on whether a third party could have been involved. Meanwhile, the police inquest could take up to three years.

Preller and Myburgh died at the peak of their artistic powers and were among the finest dancers of their generation. The week before Prelle's death, they danced at the Dance Factory's Arts Alive festival. At Wits they were to perform an extended version of Jeannette Ginslov's Do or Die, created in 1995 as a duet for Preller and Seperepere. All three dancers of the core dance, which deals with striking out against suppression, are now dead.

The deaths were greeted in dance circles with disbelief and deep sorrow, with questions being raised about the responsibility companies and schools have toward their employees and students.

State Theatre Dance Company director Esther Nasser, interviewed by the Star, stressed the importance of open communication in dance companies and, if need be, the use of mediators. "Artistic directors do have a responsibility," she said. We live in a violent society and, whether we like it or not, we carry the stress into the work situation. South African dancers are not in a stable profession. There's a lot of uncertainty about the future. That all filters through." There have been various onstage tributes to the dancers. in February a one-day conference, spearheaded by Pretoria Technikon Dance Department director Vicki Karras, will be held on the health of the dancer. The conference will highlight the problems experienced specifically by the South African dancer and the need for a crisis center.