Dance Images Archives (UCT School of Dance)

UCT School of Dance houses thousands of photographs, recordings and other artefacts that capture the history of a school and company in motion since 1934. Gerard Samuel, who became Director of UCT School of Dance since 2008, unearthed boxes containing collections of old photographs and posters which date back as far as the 1930s. He discovered that, despite its long heritage, there was no formal dance archive for the School, and he was very eager to start that process. The School of Dance was founded under the aegis of the S.A. College of Music by Dulcie Howes, who had danced in [Russian prima ballerina] Anna Pavlova’s company. It was 1934 and the aftermath of World War I was still lingering across the globe. The studios were set up in a disused aeroplane hangar.

At that stage, the University Ballet – which became CAPAB and later the Cape Town City Ballet – was conjoined to the School of Dance. The current buildings were designed by acclaimed architect Revel Fox in the early Seventies, but it was on this very site that the University Ballet produced, over the years, thousands of dances. In addition to programmes, costume sketches, video recordings and interviews, there are more than 3 000, largely black and white, photographs in the collection.