S.H. Pellissier

(19*-) Teacher, educational leader Afrikaans cultural leader, renowned for his leading involvement (with Mrs **) in the development of the Afrikaans Volkspele ("folk dance") movement and the arrangements for the 1938 centenary celebrations of the Great Trek.. Studied at the University of **, he obtained a doctorate in **. Trained as a teacher, he became director of education on the Orange Free State in the 1920s. Having been impressed by Swedish folk dance during a visit in 1912, he began to translate the songs into Afrikaans (1914) and became an avid promotor of an own Afrikaner folk-dance tradition. Utilising his position as educator - and aided by miss A.M. Köhler and miss M.E.J. Coetzee , he became systematically involved in this project in the 1930s. By the 1940s they had created a Uniale Raad van Volkspele ( "Union-wide Council for Folk Dance") in association with the Reddingsdaadbond, to organize, teach and promote Volkspele in the country and Pellissier was its chairman. * Also Chairman of the Federasie van Kulturele Vereniginge (F.A.K. = "Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Organizations") between 19* and 19*. Was made their representative on the first board of the National Theatre Organisation (N.T.O.) in 1948.

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