Dulcie Howes

Dulcie Howes (31 December 1908 – 19 March 1993) was a South African ballet dancer, teacher, choreographer, and company director. During her performing career, she was considered the prima ballerina assoluta of South African ballet. In 1934, she established the company that evolved into today's Cape Town City Ballet.

Dulcie Howes was born in Little Brak River, a seaside town at the mouth of the Little Brak River (Klein-Brakrivier, in Afrikaans), from which it takes its name. Located only a few miles north of Mossel Bay, a thriving harbor town established when Europeans first landed in southern Africa, Little Brak River was then a British colonial outpost, as the area was part of the Cape Colony until 1910. Howes was the daughter of Justice Reed Howes, who had immigrated to South Africa at the end of the Second Boer War (1899-1902), and Muriel Alice (Lind) Howe. He was headmaster of Boys High School in Oudtshoorn, the "ostrich capital of the world," in the western Cape, but after his marriage he moved to Cape Town, the legislative capital of the colony, where he practised as an advocate.

When Howes was a girl, her parents enrolled her in classes for "fancy dancing" with Miss Helen Webb. There, "dressed in a starched, white, broderie anglaise frock, with a blue satin sash round [her] very ample middle," she was taught bow to walk gracefully, how to shake hands, and how to curtsey to her elders and betters. Incidentally, she was also taught little dances for student recitals. She received more substantial dance training from Helen White, an assistant at Webb's studio who had studied abroad with the Italian maestro Enrico Cecchetti. By her, Howes was thoroughly schooled in the fundamentals of ballet technique. In 1922, at age fourteen, she became one of the first pupils of the Hershel Girls School, but in 1925, after seeing a performance by Anna Pavlova's company at the Old Opera House in Cape Town, she decided on ballet as her chosen career.

Encouraged by Webb and White, Howes traveled to London in her late teens to further her dance education. She studied the Cecchetti method of ballet training with Margaret Craske, mime technique with Tamara Karsavina, national and character dances with Friderica Derra de Morada, and Spanish dance with Elsa Brunelleschi, all the while missing no opportunity to learn about production of stage works. She may also have taken classes in ballroom dancing during her early twenties. In 1927,m she danced for a short while with the Anna Pavlova touring company, her first professional engagement, but in 1928, she returned to South Africa with a dream of establishing a major ballet company in her home country. Her vision and her determination would eventually have a profound effect on South African dance history.

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