Teaching ballet builds character

Together with her colleague, Vanessa Eborall, who boasts over five decades of experience, they have imparted ballet skills to young girls at the June Melville-Eborall School of Dancing.

Both women fell in love with ballet at a tender age, and their love of the art has kept them going for all these years.

Asked about what makes a good ballet teacher, they said, “A ballet teacher has to show a lot of care to her dancers. It is a very beautiful art.”

They added that ballet was important for children to learn because it taught them discipline, life skills, and “builds character in a child.”

One of the teachers at the school, Kelli Slotar, used to be a student. Slotar went on to study a Master’s in psychology, but she chose to come back and teach other girls how to dance.

She said, “Working with children is amazing. You can see that you are giving them something that they will carry with them for the rest of lives.”

However, Slotar added that there is not much encouragement for boys to do ballet.

Her sentiments were shared by Melville-Eborall and Eborall, who said boys are not keen to take up ballet because of the stigma associated with it. They also bemoaned the lack of support for ballet in South Africa.

The school has approximately 100 students and some of them have participated in both national and international competitions.

“We do have some exceptionally good dancers that have bursaries and scholarships. Cape Town has its own ballet competition every year and we do send our girls there, and we even send some dancers to international competitions,” said Melville-Eborall.