Grahamstown’s Janet Buckland has a small frame but her voice has the authoritative eloquence of a diva speech and drama teacher. Her focused glance looks from over the rims of her designer spectacles which balances like a well-trained gymnast on the edge of her dainty nose. Her head slowly sashays on her neck and it sways with the motion of her student dancers. There are close to two hundred dancers on stage.

As the young student dancers came alive on the stage of the Rhodes Theatre last night, Janet Buckland’s focused poise followed their every move. It’s only when the dancers took their curtain call that Buckland’s gaze relaxed and her radiant smile revealed Grahamstown’s best pearly whites.

Janet Buckland is the 2009 winner of the Pick & Pay Women of the Year Award. She is a seasoned theatre director and an accomplished arts educator. She could be spending most of her time drinking café lattes and discussing arts theory with Grahamstown’s arts academic community. Instead, Buckland has chosen to give her free time to the more than two hundred children for whom she has launched the Amapiko Township Dancers.

Black children in Grahamstown are generally a hidden brand. They only become really visible during the National Arts Festival when they withstand the bitter cold winter to parade as white-faced mime statues begging for coins and reminding festival visitors of the economic impoverishment in the Eastern Cape.

Buckland’s passion and commitment to her two hundred dancers is about giving Grahamstown’s children life-long visibility. Since launching the Amapiko Township Dancers, four of her students have moved on to take dance as an academic subject at school. Another two are studying dance at Rhodes University. One other student has graduated as a dance teacher. She now works for the Amapiko Township Dancers. Another student has received a full scholarship at Rhodes University. All of Buckland’s dancers have improved their grades at school.

Janet Buckland’s Amapiko Township Dancers offers hope that the next Dada Masilo might just be lurking somewhere amongst them. Perhaps even a Nelisizwe Xaba. Maybe even a Kitty Phetla. But the greatest satisfaction comes from watching how Buckland teaches her young dancers to take ownership of their bodies, their voices and their minds. So it’s not a far-fetched thought to expect that from amongst Buckland’s dancers, South Africans might see the rise of the next Mampele Rampele, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf or even the next Oprah Winfrey.

Buckland integrates essential life-skills learning as an integral part of being a member of the dance company. She teaches the students to assert themselves confidently and eloquently. She teaches them how to embrace their poverty and how to powerfully grasp their futures in a way that only they can shape it.

Amapiko is an isiXhosa word which means “wings”. Janet Buckland is giving these girls more than just wings. She is teaching them to fly. And when after each dance performance, you witness how the girls come to nest themselves in Buckland’s warm embrace, you can only marvel at the way in which Grahamstown’s “Mama J” is investing in a better future for Grahamstown’s invisible children.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Related posts