Black swan: Tshwane ballerina turns disease into gold medals and trophies

She has graced competition stages around the world with her technical jazz moves, and walked away with multiple medals and trophies for representing South Africa on the international stage.

Remarkable as her achievements may be, they’re even more so once you realise that she achieved them despite having had to overcome a congenital neuro-muscular disorder.

Or maybe it is because of her desire to overcome this disorder that Tsebang Sipambo turned into a champion level dancer, recognised across the world.

As a young child, Sipambo’s disease affected her speech, co-ordination, and multitasking abilities.

“I was born with a neuro-muscular disorder. They first saw it in speech therapy which I attended because I was very quiet and didn’t speak. I struggled a lot with coordination. I couldn’t ride a bicycle. Having conversations was really hard. Multitasking was a great, daily difficulty for me,” she explains.

Her mother, who was a single parent and Sipambo’s “self-appointed” manager, met an elderly lady who recommended dancing. At this time, the speech therapy sessions had become too costly for her mother, says Sipambo of the chance meeting that would end up changing her life forever.

“My mom was told about dance classes. They were much cheaper than speech therapy. My mother agreed and since then, I never looked back. Dance 100% improved my disorder. I was able to ride a bicycle, though it was at age 14. I felt more confident to speak in front of people to a point where I started speaking in front of the church and gave sermons here and there. I was also part of the first team of public speaking in school,” she said.

Starting with ballet as a “cure” for her disorder, she tapped into other styles and found herself falling in love with jazz, while using ballet fundamentals to enhance her techniques.

Sipambo then decided to take part in competitions, and with her mother’s help and support, the only way for her was up.

“Competing has always opened doors for me, especially when I started achieving a bit more. When I would get awarded the best female dancer of the competition or the best personality, it was when people started to notice me. It pushed for a lot of other things to happen – not only push my body but to constantly challenge myself as well,” she says.

One of the first things you notice about Sipambo is her small frame, and massive white smile, as she sits behind a row of trophies placed on a table in the garden at her mother’s home in Pretoria East.

Among her many awards is a star-shaped red and white trophy, which she received for being a top 10 finalist Dancer of the Year during the 2019 American Dance Awards. A heavy shoe box is filled to the brim with gold, silver and gold medals from the Dance World Cup, and the local World Dance Challenge.

The 22-year-old was the only solo dancer from South Africa to be invited to perform at the Dance Star World Championships in Croatia gala evening out of 55 countries represented in 2017. This is where she also came second for her jazz solo while receiving the best female talent at the competition.

Despite her journey to success seeming effortless, Sipambo said she was always the only black person in her team, which came with challenges of its own.

“I have always been the only black person in my team. It was hard in the beginning but as soon as I started formulating my friendships, it became easier.

“The difficulty came in with my body shape. I was told a couple of times that my body shape will make it difficult for me to look good on stage just because I had a bigger bum or I have thicker thighs, I have a flat foot. But it has helped so much to keep doing it [dancing] because I learned to appreciate and adore my body in the dance form.”

Being the only black dancer to represent South Africa also came with fears of making mistakes and disappointing younger black kids who she hoped to inspire.

“It puts a huge responsibility on me. But as I go along, the happier I am to take on that responsibility because I really do believe there should be more girls representing South Africa. There are so many talented young ladies and men who deserve to represent our country.”

With the Covid-19 pandemic putting a halt to competitions and forcing dance studios and theatres to shut their doors, Sipambo’s relationship had come full circle, as she now saw it as a personal and spiritual experience.

“It is not for the outside or anyone to see. It is about learning about myself now. I started doing it to work on myself and then we showed it to the whole world and now, it is starting to become ‘my’ thing again.”

As for the future, she has joined a programme called Hope School of the Arts, where she hope to learn about how to make money in the arts and exploring many different avenues of the industry such as different styles of dancing, singing and acting and the business side of the arts.

rorisangk@citizen.co.za