Growing up in the township of Soweto, Dada Masilo never thought to dream of ballet training or world tours. She liked street dancing to Michael Jackson and was only introduced to ballet two years after the end of Apartheid, at the age of 10. It was a strange world, she says, of pink shoes and tights. But she loved the discipline and went on to train internationally as a classical ballerina. Still only 34, she now tours the world with her very contemporary takes on traditional ballet. Her Swan Lake tackled Africa’s AIDs epidemic with male dancers playing the love triangle. Her Giselle is a feminist revenge story conceived long before #MeToo. She’s celebrated at Arts festivals from Perth to California, but the themes of her work make it less welcome in parts of Africa.
