R.I.P. Dada Masilo 1985 - 2024
It is with pain in our hearts that the P.A.R.T.S. community shares the tragic news of Dada Masilo’s passing, the celebrated South African choreographer and engaging dancer who left no one untouched. In recent years, she built an impressive body of work from her home base of Johannesburg. She toured on the most important international stages and festivals and received numerous awards.
In her oeuvre, she managed to connect her African background and stories with great classics from the Western repertoire, such as Giselle, Swan Lake, Hamlet, etc., and gave them new meaning. She was a courageous and fearless woman who used her position as an artist to draw attention to inequality, power politics, and patriarchy in her country. She advocated for gender identity and women’s rights, and in doing so, she managed to connect her energetic dance with universal social themes. In the last days of her life, she was still working on a new piece about family loss and mourning.
Dada Masilo died far too young, at the age of just 39. Her career was moving at lightning speed and came abruptly and tragically to an end. Masilo first came to the attention of the dance industry as an 11-year-old in 1996, when she was invited to dance for Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. She was educated at the National School of the Arts in Braamfontein, matriculating in 2002. Hungry to learn and improve her skills, she attended various training courses in Europe and the US, and also participated in auditions for P.A.R.T.S. We are honoured that she joined Generation VII, a very committed group of students who were critically engaged with what was offered by their teachers. So did Dada, who left the school after three years to pursue her dream in South Africa. Related to that, she said the following: “If I had stayed in Europe, I would never have made the kind of work I make because it is so safe there and everyone is calm. I want to make work with an edge,” she revealed in an interview with South African critic Mary Corrigall in 2016 (full interview available in P.A.R.T.S. - 20 Years, 50 Portraits, 2016).
Her work leaves an indelible mark on the dance field in South Africa and beyond. Her artistic influence will remain alive through the performances she created and the many children and young people she generously introduced to the art of dance that she mastered like no other. She will be greatly missed by many.
Our thoughts are first and foremost with her family, friends and loved ones. We also think about everyone in the P.A.R.T.S. community who had the privilege of dancing and working with her and followed her artistic footsteps after leaving Brussels behind.
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I remember Dada first and foremost as an exceptionally talented dancer who marvelled because of the surprising and singular artistic trajectory she achieved after school. She pioneered within the artistic context of South Africa and as a woman, which is surely unique and far from evident. I will not forget how her seemingly timid appearance transformed into an incredible force once she took the stage. Despite all her achievements, she still considered herself a dancer first and foremost because that was what she loved doing. Somehow I recognise myself in that: that unconditional passion for dance as the most beautiful language there is to bring people together and spread it across the world. Dance as a language that connects the past with the future by moving unconditionally in the now. Dance as a language that invites ‘celebration, mourning and reflection’.
- Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (director)
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Dada had an immense hunger for learning and was someone who gave a lot back to the community. Like no other, she could combine her sharp dance skills with an infectious stage presence. In the theatre workshops (I remember wonderful work with Shakespeare texts led by the now world-famous Tiago Rodrigues), she excelled in wit, insight, and interplay.
- Theo Van Rompay (former deputy-director)
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Photo by David Bergé
