SUZANNE BELLING
PHOTOGRAPH SUPPLIED
She transitioned from dancer in leading roles to master teacher in Canada and has now returned to South Africa to stage the production of Romeo and Juliet for the Johannesburg Ballet Company at the Johannesburg Theatre. It opens on Friday, July 15.
“I am very excited about it. It is a lot of work, trying to give so much information to the company,” she said. “It is a big ballet, with many characters and dancers.”
Bagg grew up in Sandringham in Johannesburg and attended the local primary and high schools until (then) standard 7, when she moved to the Johannesburg High School for Art, Ballet, Music and (later) Drama.
She then attended the Royal Ballet School in London and subsequently danced as soloist and in principal roles for 15 years with PACT Ballet in Johannesburg.
Her repertoire included Princess Aurora and Princess Florine (Bluebird) in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Swanhilda in Coppélia, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Giselle in Giselle, Kitri in Rudolf Nureyev’s production of Don Quixote and the lead in George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations.
She also performed works by renowned choreographers, including Jiři Kylián, John Cranko, Goh Choo San, André Prokovsky and Sir Frederick Ashton.
In 1982 she took a one year sabbatical from PACT Ballet and was invited to join the Frankfurt Ballet under the directorship of Egon Madsen.
She has a diploma in biomechanics and physiology from the University of the Witwatersrand and integrates this knowledge into her teaching.
She moved to Canada in 1993 with her husband (they have since divorced) and their two sons, who are now 26 and 25.
In Canada she coached students in preparation for the Adeline Genée and other competitions, apart from being ballet mistress of Ballet BC in Vancouver and ballet mistress of Alberta Ballet in Calgary, Alberta.
She also staged Swan Lake and Giselle for the South African Ballet Theatre and The Washington Ballet. She danced professionally in Canada, including roles with Alberta Ballet in Mozart’s Requiem and Fumbling Towards Ecstacy.
When she returns to Canada she would like to coach ballet and conduct master classes. However, “if the opportunity arose to come back here, it would be wonderful”.
One of the reasons she emigrated was the increasing crime in this country. She added wryly that her cell phone had been stolen on this latest trip, only a day before the interview with the SA Jewish Report.
She spent six weeks in Cape Town, “which I love”, before coming up to Johannesburg to stage the latest production.
On the role of the arts today, she said: “I understand the stress on ethnic art and culture. This is 100 per cent correct. But classical art formed Western civilisation and it would be a shame for that to be overruled by the hunger for ethnicity.”
