Tammy Higgins: Ballerina defying gravity in the world of dance

Meet Tammy Higgins, the ballerina in the upcoming production of Don Quixote at the Joburg Theatre. The theatre is a maze backstage and at one exit point, it’s an oasis of beauty.

It’s the Joburg Ballet rehearsal space and it’s alive with movement and the beautiful tranquillity of ballet. But for the dancers on the floor, it’s also a lot of sweat.

“It’s like going to gym every day,” says ballerina Tammy Higgins. “For eight hours at a time.”

She dances Kitri, one of the four main characters in the upcoming production of Don Quixote which opens at the theatre at the end of the month.

Higgins has been dancing since she was four years old. Her mind was made up about a ballet future when she was six.

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“My mom was in theatre and showed me a video of an international dancer she was working with at the time, her dancing was beautiful and I was hooked,” she says.

“It’s as if ballet chose me. I somehow always knew I was going to be a dancer. It was like love at first sight.”

Senior dancer

Higgins is now 36 and one of the more senior dancers in the country. At an age where ballerinas usually contemplate retirement, it’s not for her yet.

“I will dance until I cannot anymore,” she says.

Age is just a number and Higgins’ won’t be out for the count for some time to come. She has loads of energy, her passion for ballet evident in every sentence.

She oozes positivity and her aura of enthusiasm for life is infectious.

“I am a chatterbox,” she admits as she waxes lyrical about ballet, life, the universe, and everything in between.

It’s artists like Higgins who are authentic, no-nonsense people blessed with enormous talent who should be recognised for the cultural treasures they are.

Higgins returned to South Africa after a 12-year dancing stint in Europe.

But before her local career started, the pandemic hit. She joined the Joburg Ballet Company and as Covid measures started to ease, danced before audiences of 50 people.

It didn’t faze her because of the extraordinary effort people made at the time to enjoy ballet.

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“Classical ballet still has a large audience in South Africa,” says Higgins.

She adds that audiences have become more diverse over time, an indication that it’s not a wilting pastime but a blossoming interest as people continue to discover the beauty of one of the most gruelling, yet graceful disciplines.

Storytelling

For Higgins, ballet is about storytelling. There’s no dialogue and body language – and physical expression is everything.

“Your body can say a lot more than words can,” she adds.

“To be able to portray what you are feeling is important for the audience. You can’t fake it. You must believe you are that character when you are on stage.”

She says ballet demands full immersion into the character portrayed. Whether it’s a human or a bird, it requires the same channelling.

Kitri is a classic character in a classic ballet whose family wants to marry her off for money. But she has different ideas and in the end, love conquers all.

“It’s a beautiful message and in between, the character is so much fun,” she says. “She’s spicy, defiant and gets away with what she wants.”

It’s a romantic theme everyone can identify with and, she adds, the choreography and situational body language makes the textless story easy to follow.

Had ballet not reeled her in, Higgins says in another life, conservation and a career in wildlife would have likely ended up as her journey.

“I have a deep passion for it and in particular, for elephants.”

She admires these giant animals for their intellect, grace and character. “They are magical,” she adds.

Bucket list

Travel is also a passion and visiting Egypt and Kenya are top of her bucket list. Higgins is not a cliché of what ballerinas are stereotyped as.

She does not consume copious amounts of lettuce with cucumber. She enjoys food but is not a cheeseburger-a-day person.

Before going on stage, many performers have some kind of ritual or superstition to set their mood or reset their confidence.

“There are dancers who believe that either their left or right slipper must be shod first, others have a pre-show ritual. I do none of that. Instead, I prefer not to arrive too early before a show because there’s less time for the butterflies to flutter,” says Higgins.