International touring is a milestone moment for any arts company, and one Cape Ballet Africa will reach in just its third year when touring Swan Lake to Australia in 2027, starting in Perth.
Artistic director Debbie Turner founded the Cape Town-based ballet company in March 2024, following 24 years at the helm of Cape Dance Company and nearly a further five years at Cape Town City Ballet, stepping away in 2023 after the toll of COVID-19 restriction stress.
“I took about nine months off, and at that point, I was free to do whatever I chose to do,” Turner explains.
“I realised I want to be involved in ballet and dance for the rest of my life. It continues to be and will always be the thing that I love the most, beyond my family. It’s what makes me get up every day, and what blows my hair back.
“Cape Ballet Africa was born, starting absolutely from scratch, but having the experience of 40 years behind me of knowing how things had the potential to grow, how things would roll out and where the challenges would lie.
“One would be naive in any line of work if you didn’t think there’d be challenges along the way almost every day, but the overriding and overarching thing is my absolute love for and dedication to dance in South Africa.”
Having a sister who taught ballet meant dance has accompanied Turner throughout her life, and while her own formal performance career was as a Spanish dancer, she has studied multiple dance forms from classical and contemporary to ballroom and tap.
She began Cape Ballet Africa with four artists and today the company sits at a minimum of 30 dancers, the cast augmented significantly to 60 with additional dancers on short-term contracts for bigger productions like Swan Lake.
“My ambition for the company is to really build its repertoire into something that feels like a smorgasbord, a buffet table for dancers to benefit from,” Turner says.
“To go from Swan Lake to a Balanchine to a more modern work is very satisfying for artists. I see Cape Ballet Africa’s repertoire as looking like a big fan that all have classical ballet at the absolute root but go off in different directions in terms of artistic requirement and style.
“Many times I’ve felt like there’s some kind of angel sitting on my shoulder, where things just drop at the perfectly right time, and you grab an opportunity.
“That is what has informed so much of my working life, taking every good opportunity, running with it and making the very best of it that you can.”
Turner did just that when Theatre Tours International chief executive Simon Bryce approached her to stage a production of The Nutcracker, which Cape Ballet Africa performed last year in Johannesburg to an audience of 56,000 people across a five-week season.
During the run, Melbourne-based presenter Bryce — who has been touring companies to South Africa for about 15 years — floated the idea of building another staple of classical ballet repertoire, Swan Lake.
Featuring lavish sets and costumes, the traditional interpretation of Swan Lake premiered in Johannesburg in August this year.
“It was Richard Branson who said ‘Say yes and then figure out how you’re going to do it afterwards’,” Turner says.
“It pushed me to go ‘OK, the work is not stopping here. You’ve got the next project on the table already’.
“It’s wonderful to have a reciprocity with an Australian-based company, getting to explore a completely new place and meet the artistic community in Australia . . . It’s a huge adventure, it’s daunting, and at the same time, it’s super exciting.”
Cape Ballet Africa’s Swan Lake follows the classical lineage traditional staging of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov under the direction of former English National Ballet principal Elena Glurjidze, in collaboration with Diane van Schoor and Lindy Raizenberg.
Featuring romance and betrayal, the technically demanding ballet tells the tragic love story of a Princess Odette bound by a sorcerer’s curse to live as a swan, where Prince Siegfried’s love alone can set her free.
“Because of Elena’s broad experience of multiple versions of traditional Swan Lakes that she’s done, I really think she brought the best of her personal experience with her to stage this for us,” Turner says ahead of her first visit to Australia.
“There’s an evocation of beauty about classical ballet, particularly the narrative ballets, and even more particularly Swan Lake, that just transports people, even if they’ve never seen ballet before in their life.
“Then in tandem with that is the exquisite Tchaikovsky score that is so soaring and emotive, I think one would be hard-pressed not to be moved by something so beautiful visually, as well as aurally.”
Swan Lake is at Crown Theatre Perth, April 9 to 11. Tickets at ticketmaster.com.au.