…..SoSuterBill…..

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Scrapbook memories… every now and then BILLY SUTER dips into scrapbooks that piled up during his 24 years as Arts Editor of The Mercury newspaper in Durban (he took early retirement in December 2016) and, just for fun, dig out reviews and interviews from yesteryear. Today he glances back at a fun interview with dancer-choreographer Mark Hawkins, from March 30, 1998.
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IT’S back to March of 1998 for more Durban theatre memory-making, as we flip through my scrapbooks from The Mercury to revisit an interview with dancer-choreographer Mark Hawkins, at a time when Durban’s Playhouse Company had started retrenchments and he was about to leave his post as artistic director of the Playhouse Dance Company.

The interview, much of it tongue-in-cheek, was to promote Concert Fever, a production at Durban’s Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, which Hawkins directed. It was a show paying tribute to acts that had toured South Africa.

In the interview, Hawkins mentions his then-plans to start what became the successful Very, Very Big Productions company and also his plans to raise money from corporate and private sectors to start a fully privatised dance company by June of that year. That, of course, became the Fantastic Flying Fish Dance Company. Hawkins also discusses plans for the April 1998 launch of Very Very Big Productions with an event called The Living Room, for the Durban Designer Emporium.

An update: In more recent times, Hawkins lost his left leg, from just below the knee, due to diabetes but, in a Facebook update, reports that he is still involved with dance.

“I have been teaching my Adult Ballet ladies once again and held an Open Day last month to recruit new ‘students’ which was a big success. So now we have a few more ‘newbies’. It really has been awesome.” he writes. “Teaching these ‘more mature’ ladies is always so good for my soul and I always feel like I am in a happy space after class…and proud of them. They have become so good!”

Hawkins also recently staged Les Sylphides (together with Chase Bosch and Dianne Finch) for the National School of the Arts at the Joburg Theatre; then worked on the Body Moves International Inclusive Dance Festival 2024 for Sibikwa Arts Centre, “which is always a highlight of the year, for the past three years”.

He adds: “I also revived my Hansel & Gretel – The Ballet, which I choreographed 12 years ago for the Joburg Youth Ballet, and this time it was staged in collaboration with JYB and Thabiso Manare’s ‘Mason de la Dance’, a studio in Soweto. Magic was once again created.”

Hawkins admits it has, at times, been a bit of a challenge and frustrating trying to teach in a wheelchair, “but I have learnt some tricks to be able to do much of what I have had to do, unassisted!

“It has also made me realise the difficulties people in wheelchairs, or any kind of disability, have to face daily. This has to change radically in the future. No ramps, toilets that are wheelchair un-friendly, people parking in disabled parking spaces, etc!

“But, all in all… all is good!”