Civic_Honours_2011 book SMALL.pdf - City of Cape Town

Phyllis Bernice Sp
Throughout her career, Phyllis Bernice Spira was hailed for her beauty, wealth of expression, elegance of
line, and the kind of magic that captures an audience’s attention and gives them joy.
Phyllis was born in 1943 and began her ballet training at age four. She attended Waverley Girls High
School in Johannesburg and was accepted into the Royal Ballet School at age 16.
She later joining the Royal Ballet Touring Company and danced as a soloist in Europe, the Middle East
and the Far East. However, she turned down an international career and an invitation to dance with the
legendary Rudolf Nureyev to return to South Africa in 1964.
Phyllis joined the former Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal (PACT) Ballet Company and a year
later joined the Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB) where, over almost three decades, her artistic
standards helped raise the company to an international level. She toured with the National Ballet of
Canada from 1967 to 1968.
Being a great ballerina goes far beyond technique and encompasses more than personal magnetism,
range of expression and musicality (yet Phyllis had a knack of really sinking into the music and floating
through her movements). She was the ideal frail Giselle, a powerful Odile in Swan Lake, an extraordinary
Juliet, and the epitome of innocence and grace in The Sleeping Beauty. Her superb role in La Sylphide
displayed the true sense of the Romantic ballerina.
Her talent was embraced with her ability to work hard; her sure technique and unmistakable
classical line standing her in good stead through times of triumph as well as injury and recovery, the
occupational hazards facing a professional dancer.
Phyllis was granted the status of prima ballerina assoluta, a title held by only a few dancers worldwide,
in 1984.