About Dance For All
360˚- giving goes full circle
We’re whipping out our vuvuzelas, beating our African drums and rallying our social networks to make a call to you to support Dance for All in this exciting new campaign!
Sponsor a DFA teacher and you will be instrumental in helping us enable our 1000+ students to continue to receive the excellent training we provide.
Click here to see the full list of teachers.
The campaign
We want to celebrate our teachers who have chosen to work in an environment where they encounter the many social ills our students live with daily. Our teachers once had the opportunity of being taught by excellent teachers and performing on stages locally and abroad. They have come back to pass on their skills and experience at DFA. Some of our teachers are themselves products of the DFA programme and choose to remain and teach in their communities.
We need R105 000 a month to retain the services of our 16 excellent teachers. We’d like you to get to know them better, so read about them below, get a picture of their background, skills and experience and see how they fit into the DFA family.
As a non-profit organisation, it is vital that we not only sustain, but constantly grow our funding sources. We regularly put on our creative thinking caps to come up with new ideas to engage you while simultaneously showing off our fabulous successes. Our brand new 360° Campaign is a special appeal for funding where it matters most: the teachers are the backbone of DFA’s core mission.
Many children and teenagers today are ‘numbing out’ through the use of drugs or alcohol. In contrast, through the wonderful medium of dance, our students engage with the present and, by staying in sensation, learn to appreciate and respect their bodies, while also building up the psychological resilience to deal with the huge emotional and social challenges they face. Developing a positive sense of self truly empowers them in their lives.
They work hard for the opportunity to perform on stage and it is here that they give back to you, our audience. We see it in your attendance and hear it in your applause... We see the same joy reflected in our dancers backstage after a performance and this glow filters back to their teachers. And so it goes full circle. Any degree of that 360 could begin with you, as you leap in and become part of our full circle. Sponsor a teacher and enable a dancer!
The teachers
Allison Hendricks
I am coordinator of Dance for All’s Studios@Aden, which offers a range of classes in various dance styles to members of the public.
Bruno Wani
I started dancing at the age of 13 and two years later became involved with the Union Dance Project at Langa High School – a project that exposed me to drama, various styles of dance and also offered performance opportunities.
Christopher Kindo
I am a choreographer, teacher and former dancer. I teach ballet, contemporary, jazz and choreography. I started dancing at the age of nine, doing ballet, then jazz and contemporary. I achieved a performer’s diploma in ballet from the University of Cape Town School of Dance.
Fiona Sargeant
For the past five years I have been involved in many aspects of the DFA Rural Outreach Programme, primarily in the Breede River area, working in Zolani and areas around Montagu. We have recently expanded to include the communities of Freshair and Ashbury. I am currently a teacher and coordinator of the Montagu programme.
Grant Puchert
I was born in East London and was only introduced to the world of theatre at the age of 17. I started in musical theatre, but have danced in ballet companies (CAPAB, Cape Town City Ballet and Bovim Ballet); contemporary companies (Jazzart, Diversions) and performed in musicals such as ‘CATS’, ‘Grease’ and ‘The Rocky Horror Show’. My career has given me the opportunity to dance not only locally, but abroad – in places such as Scotland, Lebanon, Malaysia and Korea.
Hope Nongqongqo
As Cape Town Outreach Manager, I am in charge of the township outreach programme, which includes classes in Gugulethu, Nyanga and Khayelitsha. I started attending Dance for All classes in Gugulethu at the age of 13. At first I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into. However, black kids doing ballet class was something totally different to what I was used to, and I liked challenges.
Ingrid Carlson
While I was growing up in Johannesburg, I used to create dance performances for the neighbours, using crinkle paper for costumes and effects. When I saw a Spanish dance performance by Luisillo, I decided I wanted to learn to dance. I started ballet classes in Florida and went on to do the diploma course in ballet and Spanish dance at UCT Ballet School under Dulcie Howes and David Poole.
Lorraine Ndindwa
I was one of the founder students of Dance for All, having attended the first classes held in Gugulethu while I was a young teenager. I am now a dance teacher at DFA. I love teaching because I am giving back to the community what I have learned from DFA and from having the opportunity to attend the University of Cape Town School of Dance. In turn, I would like to see my students become professional dancers one day, and teachers as well.
Margie Sim
I am head of the Ballet Programme at Dance for All. I danced professionally with the PACT Ballet Company as soloist/principal, performing the principal roles in ballets such as 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Coppelia', 'Graduation Ball' and 'La Fille Mal Gardee'.
Masonwabe (Afrika) Mtikitiki
I was introduced to the Dance for All Rural Outreach Programme in Zolani in 2007 through helping out as a translator in Fiona Sargeant’s dance classes. I am now employed as a trainee teacher and run the African and contemporary classes. With Fiona and Vusumzi, I teach about 100 children.
Nigel A. Lucas
I started ballet at the age of nine in my home town of Somerset West. I have had the most enjoyable dance experience – in training as well as in my professional career – and would like to impart that kind of joy to the children I teach.
Nobuntu Nqolase
I started dance classes with Dance for All at Sivuyile College in Gugulethu in 1991, when I was seven years old. At a young age, I had the opportunity of performing at Artscape in a CAPAB Ballet Company production of The Nutcracker. It was an incredible experience for me and I would love to offer other children similar opportunities.
Pauline van Buitenen
I was born in The Netherlands and took my first ballet classes at the age of five. When I was eight, I started at the National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam and went on to get a degree in performing and teaching ballet. I danced professionally with the Dutch National Ballet and was also involved in musical theatre, choreographing for musicals such as CATS and Miss Saigon.
Philip Boyd
I am the Founder, Artistic Director and CE0 of Dance for All, which I established in 1991. I started this organisation to give underprivileged children the opportunity to have a good basic dance training.
Thulisile Ndindwa
I started dancing at a young age and now, as a teacher, I hope to make a difference in the lives of my students. I teach about 124 students on the Cape Town Outreach Programme and focus on ballet and ‘freestyle’ (a fun combination of styles to encourage children to enjoy movement).
Vusumzi November
I have been part of Dance for All’s Rural Outreach Programme in Zolani since it started in 2007 and I am now a trainee teacher. I teach the hip hop classes in Zolani and in and around Montagu and am involved in all the community performances.
Last chance to book for Chance to Dance
