Sylvia 'Magogo' Glasser
Sylvia ‘Magogo’ Glasser was born in 1940 in Pietersburg, in the Northern Transvaal (which became Polokwane in Limpopo Province).
Training :
Glasser graduated with a Diploma from London College of Dance and Drama (1960-1963), a BA from the University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg (1973), and an MA in Dance from the University of Clear Lake City, Houston, Texas (1977).
Teaching:
The ballet-trained Glasser started Experimental Dance Theatre, an annual platform for new choreography in Johannesburg in 1967, and co-organised and choreographed for eight programmes. Amongst places where she taught were the Federated Union of Black Artists, and the African Cultural Centre.
She has also taught, lectured and choreographed at universities and colleges internationally. Amongst places where she taught were the Federated Union of Black Artists, and the African Cultural Centre.
In the 1980’s she developed the concept of Edudance – a methodology using dance to teach academic subjects and social issues.
Glasser has written ten academic papers which have been presented at international conferences and published in international journals with two appearing in books.
Company:
Her deep respect for, and interest in, indigenous South African culture led to her pioneering ‘Afrofusion’ in her choreography from 1977.
She founded Moving into Dance (MID), in 1978, during the height of apartheid as a non-racial dance company and training organisation in her garage in the suburb of Victory Park, and was director of this organization, later titled Moving Into Dance Mophatong, from 1978 – 2013.
Awards:
1990 David Webster Memorial Award for academic excellence over 3 years in Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand
1992 Nominated for the AA Vita for Choreographer of the Year Award for Tranceformations
1994 Winner of the FNB Vita Choreographer of the Year Award for “Stone Cast Ritual”.
1997 Received a FNB Vita Special award with Moving into Dance for “developing a uniquely South African voice in contemporary choreography and dance, acknowledged both here and abroad. With your distinctive style, your ongoing education and outreach programmes have since 1978 made dance accessible to communities throughout South Africa.”
1998 Nominated for FNB Vita Choreography Award for “Passage of Rites”
1999 One of Top 100 People of 1998 in the Star Newspaper.
2000 Received FNB Vita Special Awards as “one of South Africans’ national cultural treasures, a remarkable social activist whose exceptional work, in specifically African dance, has changed lives, perceptions and the face of South African dance”.
2004 Received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arts and Culture Trust of SA.
2005 Recipient of the “Tunkie” Award for leadership in dance.
2007 Nominated for Gauteng MEC Dance Award for Best Choreography in a Contemporary Style for “Blankets of Shame.
2008 Cited as one of Top 100 People in The Star
2010 Honoured by Minister of Arts and Culture Lulu Xingwana and received one of Department of Arts and Culture awards “Tribute to Women in the Arts and Culture Sector” on Women’s Day at the State Theatre
2012-13:
After a long and prolific carreer in dance Glasser is in retirement.
Latest update : September 13
