Rock around the clock - IOL

My mother loved to dance. Anywhere. The "night before" functions at the "wedding house" were her favourite. She kept a beady eye on the long trestles serving the supper. The people aimlessly chewing on chicken feet and marrow bones irritated her.

"Come on, finish up y'all, the DJ is waiting," she would harass the slow eaters. The moment the sound check screeched into life, she was on the makeshift dance floor. Back in the day, I imagine she might have been the sort dancing on the speakers at the Palladium.

I loved pawing through her wardrobe: lace dresses, fur stoles, long coats, silk stockings, and leather slingbacks. My father might have taken her to the Sunday night supper club at Sol Namara in Chatsworth, but I do not recall them ever hitting the dance scene at Durban's hot spots. Perhaps it was the fact that we never owned a car, or that my father was always so busy between his office job and endless community organisations.

Once, while driving up Alice Street towards Old Fort Road, I pointed to the gracious building that once housed Saira Essa's Upstairs Theatre. She was the diva of my high school days. I had stolen a poster advertising her speech and drama classes from the library, pasting it on my bedroom wall with cooked rice grains.

As I began telling my mother about my infatuation with Essa, she cut in to talk about ballroom dancing. "You know Runga Naidoo is my cousin," she blurted out.

In pitter-patter Telugu, she took me back through the black-and-white photographs in our family album. There is one showing her cousin in a tailcoat, holding Violet L'Etang in a tight clinch as they waltzed off with first prize in the 1959 Ballroom and Latin American Dance Championships in Durban.

Piano maestro Melvin Peters mentioned to us a couple of weeks ago at Goodwill Manor that ballroom dancing and jazz formed a vibrant social and cultural scene among Durban Indians from the 1940s to the 1970s. During those politically oppressive days, the dance floor offered spaces for leisure, romance, and a brief interlude from apartheid restrictions, including the Group Areas Act, when "mixed" gatherings took their chances with peeking police.

The cosmopolitan urban culture of "Town" was dominated by the Grey Street precinct, made famous in the writings of Phyllis Naidoo, Aziz Hassim, and Ronnie Govender. Dominating the scene were the foxtrot, tango, samba, rumba, quickstep, jive, and rock set to live bands—often with an Indian film music twist, according to research by Professor Chats Devroop.

"We were the Manjaros," gushed Hamish Kydd a few weeks before his passing. He showed off the two-tone Crockett & Jones shoes he wore to the Kilimanjaro at the Himalaya Hotel. Elegant social dancing, he explained, was a major craze across generations.

Popular dance academies included Runga Naidoo’s Dance Academy, the Shan Pillay School of Dancing, and Francis Shadrack’s. Bands like the Dukes Combo, Flames, Blue Ricks, Rockets, Crescendos, Sam’s Latin Kings, Hot Shots, Raiders, Kreme, and the Magnets enjoyed true celebrity status.

"Yoh, we could swaai," reminisced Kydd, who later made his mark as a writer, actor, and theatre personality.

Newspaper archives glow about Lionel Peters, Henry Paul, Morris Joseph, the Seekolas, Brian Pillai, Ricky and Danny Pillay, and Dee Sharma. Gigs were routinely sold out, with throngs queuing outside, eager to bribe a doorman or bouncer to get in.

By the mid-eighties, matinees were popular at spots like the Butterworth Hotel, where breaking into a sweat on the dance floor could be carried upstairs to the balcony suites. The Bugwandeen brothers and Mr Ramol held court at the Moon Hotel in Clairwood, which paid no heed to apartheid segregation of audiences or performers.

My memory is hazy, but I might have seen a svelte Abigail Kubheka or a raucous Thandi Klaasen perform there. Art aficionado Riason Naidoo's book, The Indian in Drum, is chock-full of iconic images of the Goodwill Lounge and its legendary proprietors, Pumpy and Nammy Naidoo, who were seldom seen without tuxedos.

American clarinettist Tony Scott played there. Sonny Pillay, who outpaced Frank Sinatra in the 1950s and 1960s, told me Pumpy Naidoo gave him his first big break after watching him break the box office at the City Hall with African Jazz and Variety.

"Just come sing, lad," urged the impresario before Pillay headed into exile with his wife, Miriam Makeba.

The ballroom at the Chatsworth Hotel continued the live band tradition into the 1970s, with journalist and walking encyclopaedia Yogin Devan expertly capturing the charm of its heyday.

While the legends of yesteryear may have glided into the pages of history and the recesses of memory, all is not lost. A quiet comeback is gaining ground. Melvin Peters is eagerly promoting jazz, especially among the younger generation. Dance schools are popping up in community halls, churches, and schoolrooms, with folks like Rene and Bougie Naidoo and Elvis Pooniah lighting up the dance floor. Nava Naidoo commands a phenomenal following with a soulful take on the beauty and healing power of dance.

The Glenwood community hosts a popular "come and dance" every first Sunday of the month at 6pm at the Phansi Museum on Esther Roberts Road. Nothing fancy—just good food and plenty of freestyling. Meanwhile, the annual Hospice Ball hosted by the Chatsworth Regional Hospice Association rivals New York's Met Gala with its glamour and live bands.

"When are we going dancing?" might have been my mother's first line whenever I rang her. I am pretty sure she is pumping up the jam right now with Saint Peter and the Rockers.