Alfred Rodrigues
South African ballet dancer and choreographer
Alfred Rodrigues (18 August 1922 – 12 January 2002) was a South African ballet dancer and choreographer. His works have been produced by ballet and opera companies in many countries of the world.
Early life and training
Born in Cape Town, a cosmopolitan city near the southern tip of South Africa, Alfred Rodrigues made his first appearance on stage as a child. In 1936, when he was 14, he saw a performance by Colonel de Basil's Ballet Russe when the company toured South Africa, and his interest in ballet was kindled. He joined the Cape Town Ballet Club in 1937 after he saw an advertisement placed in a newspaper by Dulcie Howes, asking for male dancers. Subsequently, as a student in the ballet classes of the celebrated teacher Cecily Robinson, he failed to show any particular talent as a dancer, but in workshops he did demonstrate a certain flair for choreography. He made his first ballet in 1938, a short piece for students in the Ballet Club set to a piano transcription of "Danse Macabre," a tone poem (op. 40) by Camille Saint-Saëns with spooky melodies, driving rhythms, and dramatic structure. Encouraged by Howes, he soon made two other works for the club, Le Roi s'Amuse (1940) and L'Île des Sirènes (1941).
Professional career
Rodrigues's promising career as a choreographer was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. He joined the South African army and saw combat in Egypt and Syria before being demobilized at the end of the war.
The public source identifies “Alfred Rodrigues” as south African ballet dancer and choreographer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alfred, Rodrigues and South.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q21597978. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 2002, 1936 and 1937.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alfred Rodrigues” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.