Dancing integral to Winkler’s e.ID

Cape Town dancer Gala Winkler is performing in the Darkroom Contemporary production of e.ID: A Fugue at the State Theatre in Pretoria. The SA Jewish Report spoke to her between performances.  

What is your background? 

I was born in Cape Town to mother Michelle and father Mark. My mother has worked as a dancer, stylist, yoga teacher, and Montessori teacher. She was  pre-school teacher as I grew up. My father worked in advertising and spent his spare hours writing novels that have since been published. 

My sister, Grace, is four years older than me and when she was not at school, she was dancing, acting, singing, and performing. So, naturally, as a younger sibling wanting to be as great, I did all the same. I imitated and recited all her material to the point that my mother put me in tap classes when I was two years old. 

I then expanded to ballet, modern, drama, and acrobatics as I got older. 

I began my schooling at Herzlia, then moved to Cedar House at 15 years old. 

What drew you to dance?  

I like to think dance was a specialised cell embedded in my embryo. I moved and wriggled in my mother’s womb so much so that I was wrapped in the umbilical cord when I was born. 

My mother danced professionally until her mid-twenties, and my sister danced and went on to finish a degree in choreography. She has always been the apple of my eye, and I wanted to be just like her. 

What does dance mean to you?  

Dance doesn’t just mean something to me; it is me. 

There have been times I’ve taken a pause from dance, times I’ve sacrificed all else in my world to give light to dance, times I’ve used dance to express and release, times I’ve just danced because I can, times I’ve left the dance world, knowing in that moment that that chapter of my life is closed. 

But there is a light that leaves me whenever I move away from dance. It is having an arm or a leg missing, but more so a heart that is missing. It is the simplest, purest love, one that cannot be explained by the way it makes me feel or express myself. It just is me. 

What do you love about dancing for an audience?  

I performed on stage in June this year for the first time in seven years. And it was only then that I really understood why I’m hungry to be a dancer. In all my love for dance, there has always been fear embedded in performance. But this time round, I found a confidence, trust, and belief that my body is capable of telling a story with its lines and shapes and collapse and heights.  

And with that, comes the strongest presence in the space, within myself. The audience all but disappears and I am there with me, with dance, with my team. And it feels like home. 

When the show ends, and I return to reality, it is not so much anymore about being perceived in a certain way, but rather that I did something to make others feel, think, or be curious. 

Which is your favourite dance form?  

I am a big lover of ballet, the discipline, the strength, the centring it gives me. I thrive on having direction and routine and knowing what to expect. But contemporary dance challenges me to be curious, to have trust that whatever comes will come, and I am capable of growing through the movement to understand it.  

How would you describe Darkroom Contemporary?  

Darkroom Contemporary has been a dream company of mine since I watched my dance teacher, Kristy Brown, perform with it 14 years ago. What I love about Darkroom’s work is that it’s not just dancing to dance, not just dancing to be beautiful and to make others smile.  

Darkroom’s work is an exploration of what is not considered. It confronts and questions, encourages both the dancers and the audience to be curious. And I believe to be curious is a great gift. Without curiosity, we would never grow, learn, or have the awareness that choice is ours. 

The work is also extremely beautiful, creative, weird, and impactful. And to be able to move in beauty, while accepting ugliness and clearing the smoke we are blinded by, is a privilege beyond measure. 

What did it take to clinch a role with Darkroom Contemporary?  

Last year, when I hadn’t been actively dancing or training for about three years, I started going to the Darkroom open classes for professional dancers. And something possessed me to go to the audition – something fun to do and a free class maybe. It’s never the right or the wrong time, training or not training, to keep pursuing what you love. 

After discussing the possibility of an apprenticeship, I committed to attending every class they offered, finding other open ballet classes, and dedicating my focus and energy to dance in those spaces. 

I joined Darkroom as an apprentice in April this year, in gratitude and disbelief.  

I’ve been the type of person who compares herself with others, especially in the dance space, and this time I wasn’t going to let that happen. Rather, I decided to accept and allow what was happening, and remain grateful wherever I was taken. wherever I was taken.  

I found that showing up exactly as I was, having no expectations of myself or the other dancers, and staying committed and present each day, is what shifted the experience for me. 

What does this role mean to you, not least of all as your first professional contract?  

There are moments it still feels unreal. There have been many obstacles along my dance journey, self-imposed and otherwise, that forced me to dissolve the dancer within. I see this role as the biggest blessing and privilege I have yet to encounter, a thousandth chance to live my dream. If you’d have told me six months ago that this is where I would find myself, I would have laughed in your face or cried. 

There aren’t words to describe the feeling of being able to do what you love while raising awareness for social change 

Other than dance, what makes you happy? 

I used to think it takes a lot to be happy, but focusing on smaller things has made it so much simpler. Learning, watching, sharing, creating. Those actions can be vast or minimal, but any degree of them has the ability to bring joy. 

e.ID: A Fugue by Darkroom Contemporary is at the State Theatre in Pretoria until 23 August, with booking through Webtickets. The company will embark on an international tour to Berlin and Arnhem in September.