Dulcie Howes
Dulcie Howes (18*-19*) was a ballet dancer, choreographer and administrator.
Biography
She was the ballet mistress of a ballet school in Cape Town, known as the Cape Town Ballet Company. After the very successful opening of The Marriage of Figaro she was approached by professor William H. Bell to bring her ballet school under the wing of the College of Music, as the UCT Ballet School.
Contribution to South African theatre
December 1947: Sponsored by the Association of Arts, Dulcie Howes brought her Cape Town Ballet Company to King William's Town for one ballet performance and then moved to East London for three performances at the East London City Hall. Maurice Metliss and Renee Feller, the latter one of the principal dancers, two of her accompanying students, were from East London.
Through the recommendation of Bell, Howes also became the next Director of the Little Theatre in Cape Town.
In 1950 she became involved in setting up the Maynardville Open-Air Theatre, both as organizer and choreographer, doing St Valentine’s Night and Les Diversions the UCT Ballet Company as part of the opening production of the venue on 1-3 December 1950.
[FdV, TH]
Sources
Saturday Post, October 4, 1947.
Donald Inskip 1972. Forty Little Years: The Story of a Theatre. Cape Town: Howard Timmins.
Donald Inskip 1976. The Maynardville Chronicle, 1956-1976. Epping: Printpak.
Karen Combrinck, 1997. Contents list of "The Dulcie Howes Papers", Manuscripts & Archives, University of Cape Town Libraries (donated by Victoria Cawood)[1]
Dulcie Howes: Pioneer of Ballet in South Africa. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau; 1996. ISBN 0-7981-3651-0.
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