Profile: Dada Masilo - Queen of Dance

Written by Sam Mathe
Tuesday, 16 August 2011 14:52

The international classical and contemporary dance scene is literally at Dada Masilo’s magic feet. The extraordinarily gifted dancer and choreographer recently performed The Bitter End of Rosemary, in Düsseldorf, Germany, to critical acclaim. Purists of classical disciplines such as ballet have often been critical of her unique and refreshing interpretations of traditional pieces such as Swan Lake, Carmen and Romeo and Juliet – accusing her of breaking the rules.

But the 26-year-old Soweto-born artist with a lithe body that moves with the grace of a serpent has been known from her formative years as a spunky dancing girl who often pushes the staid, restrictive boundaries of classical dance creations in her choreography.
Her unconventional and iconoclastic approach is clearly pronounced in The Bitter End of Rosemary, which is based on Ophelia, the tragic heroine figure in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The 2008 Standard Bank Young Artist winner certainly pushed boundaries of old-world modesty when she performed this dance in her birthday suit. She explains that it was a decision that was not taken lightly, but she saw it as an authentic way of giving artistic expression to the madness of Shakespeare’s tragic heroine while poignantly revealing the character’s extreme vulnerability in light of her troubled mental state.

For Masilo dance is much more than an aesthetic physical expression to entertain the rich and privileged patrons of theatre houses but a silent though effective language she uses to reflect the abusive state of women in a patriarchal world. Shocking and captivating at the same time, Masilo has a unique way of challenging prejudice by turning race, class and gender stereotypes on their heads as her modern interpretations of classics such as Romeo and Juliet, Carmen and Swan Lake attest.

She usually fuses ballet and contemporary dance. “My approach is to show that contemporary African dance and ballet can co-exist,” she explains. “It is about finding an innovative way of fusing the two. I believe that we need to collapse barriers that exist between them because they are restrictions. And as dancers we don’t need restrictions.”

But at the same time, dance, like other performing arts, is about the artist testing his or her artistic potential. Masilo says her out-of-the-box but fluid and distinct style is motivated by a passion to push herself.

“I like to challenge myself,” she explains. “Many choreographers get into the pattern of using the same steps to different music. I think that is lazy choreography. It should change all the time.”

Growing up in Soweto, Masilo was already a member of a dance troupe at the age of 11. She says she knew there and then that dance was her destiny. The Meadowlands-based all-girl troupe entertained onlookers by performing Michael Jackson moves. In 1996 they got their first break when they performed at the Arts Alive festival at the Dance Factory in Newtown, Johannesburg. Suzette le Seuer, Masilo’s mentor and executive director of the Dance Factory, a school of dance that unearths and nurtures young talent, was particularly impressed with her mentee’s natural abilities on the dance floor. She invited her group the following year. She started taking formal lessons at the Dance Factory in 1997.

“The first thing that impressed me about her was her incredible focus,” recalls Le Seuer. “I was watching her while she was watching a dance performance. She obviously loved what she was watching but did so with extraordinary focus and concentration. On stage she commands an amazing sense of theatre. It is a world with which she is completely at home”.

Classical ballet is a challenging discipline that demands rigorous practice and total commitment from its pupils. So how did she manage to impress strict mentors such as Le Seuer and David Matamela, who became an international sensation when the musical African Footprint toured five continents in the early 2000s?

“She is a hardworking individual who has always pushed herself,” explains Le Seuer. Her discipline, work ethic and passion for dance saw her showcasing her talents on international stages in front of royalty such as Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands – even before reaching the age of 18. Another highlight worth mentioning was when she performed fellow countryman Gregory Maqoma’s production in New York to critical acclaim and lavish praise by the American media, including CNN.

At 19 she was already teaching dance at the Dance Factory – an institution where she literally grew up and that has since become her artistic and intellectual home. After matriculating at Braamfontein’s National School of the Arts in 2002, she spent a year in Cape Town’s Jazzart Dance Theatre where she gained valuable experience and exposure as both a dancer and teacher. In 2004 she performed at the London School of Contemporary Dance. Other opportunities beckoned when in 2005 she won a place in one of Europe’s premier dance academies, PART, in Brussels, Belgium, to teach children.

Back home the authorities recognised her talents and achievements when she received the Gauteng Arts and Culture MEC Award for the Most Promising Female Dancer in a Contemporary Style in 2006. When she was bestowed with the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Dance in 2008, she was quoted as saying: “I’m truly grateful to Standard Bank for this prestigious award. I can’t imagine anything that I would covet more than this and the chance to have my own show at the National Arts Festival.”

She continues to put her best foot forward in the glamorous but demanding world of dance. She is currently Dance Factory’s artist-in-residence where she runs a youth training programme that aims to produce professional dancers who, hopefully, would one day have the world at their feet.