The memorable performances by the Young Russian Ballet Company at Roodepoort Theatre were not just something to write home about, but also boasted a guest soloist and showcased a shining star

The guest soloist was Revil Yon. The shining star who stood revealed on the night was Karmia Postma.

The Guest Soloist

If the company’s young dancers gave the evening its heart, Revil Yon, Principal Dancer with the Joburg Ballet, gave it its fire.

Born in Uitenhage and introduced to ballet at 15 years old in Port Elizabeth, Yon’s path to the top of South African dance is one of the more compelling stories in the country’s ballet world.

A late starter hooked by a single youth production of Robin Hood, he joined Cape Town City Ballet at 18, saw his meteoric rise leap through the ranks to Senior Artist and Soloist, won the Keith Mackintosh Prague Scholarship in 2015, and eventually made his way to Joburg Ballet, where he is now a Principal Dancer.

Yon took the stage as guest soloist alongside YRBC’s own Karmia Postma. The two of them were performing the iconic Pas de Deux of Medora and Conrad – widely regarded as one of the most celebrated and demanding duets in the classical canon.

For Yon, stepping onto the Roodepoort stage alongside the YRBC felt like a homecoming of sorts. They had previously performed with the company in production of The Sleeping Beauty, returning now two years on.

Yon is a principal dancer with the Joburg Ballet, and guesting with the Russian Youth Company.

Says Yon: “It’s really an honor to be back with them. I’ve performed with them in their production of Sleeping Beauty and their Sophie. For me, this time around, like two years later, it’s been such a homecoming.”

Yon says it was a pleasure to be welcomed me back, and ‘it’s just really an honor to be here’.

“I’m so happy I got to perform in this beautiful theater with these amazing dancers. A lot of them have grown since the last time I’ve seen them. It’s just been a wonderful, wonderful experience, and I hope that the audience enjoyed what I, like, could bring,” Yon remarked about the night’s breathtaking performances.

Yon is just as forthcoming about the exhilaration that comes with being on stage: “Well, you know, I think what the audience don’t realize, as dancers, we live for this moment on stage, and for me, it’s everything. All the countless hours of hard work, all the countless hours of sacrifice, you know, and practicing over and over a routine, that one moment on stage, it’s really a feeling I can’t describe.”

Yon describes the feeling as something that drives him to come back every day, back to the bar, back to the ballet class, so that he can have a moment like this.

“You know, whether it be every week, whether it be every month, it’s just something I love doing. Dancers live for this moment on stage. It is everything. It’s a feeling you can’t describe and it’s what makes you come back every day to practice,” said Yon.

He said what drew him to ballet in the first place was the music.

Says Yon: “I had a late start in ballet.I started when I was 15, but I remember so clearly, vividly, my first ballet I saw was Robin Hood, and it was a youth production, co-production with the Friendly City Youth Ballet from PE, with the Cape Town City Ballet, you know, and I remember watching it, and I sat like this, and I was in awe of them.”

The now dancer hooked on ballet was not short for words: “I could immediately understand the dancers, which was weird for a lot of people to grasp because they weren’t speaking, but I could understand through the movement of their bodies, and for me, ever since that moment, I was hooked. And for me, I always say it’s about the music. It’s not about me. It’s not about the dancer alongside me. It’s not about the steps. It’s about the music because once you stay true to the music, your body just naturally yields into the groove.”

Yon just sails when asked about what goes into the preparation that audiences never see: “Wow. I think what people need to realize is that it’s not just about the dancing or the preparation of a production. It’s countless hours of planning beforehand. It’s planning the marketing, planning the costume, planning the music, deciding which dancer does what to roll or perform what role. So for me, preparing for something like this takes hours.

“It takes a team. It takes coordinating, you know, communication, you know, which I think is very vital, very important to making a production like this happen. And any production, whether it be musical, whether it be ballets, you know, I think we take for granted that you just see the beauty, but you don’t realize all the countless hours, sleepless nights from producers to make this one night magical for the audience. So it’s been a privilege to be a part of. Thank you.”

The Company’s Shining Star

The show would not be over until its shining star had glittered. That perfectly applies to thirty year old, Karmia Postma who occupies a uniquely central role at the YRBC: principal dancer, company teacher, and mentor to the youngest members of the ensemble.

Born in Bloemfontein and raised in Johannesburg, she has been dancing since she was 06 years old. She was introduced to ballet by her mother, a former dancer who had to set her own passion aside.

Postma never did. She joined the Russian School of Ballet in 2019 and has been with the company ever since, performing lead roles while simultaneously teaching the “Minis” who share the same stage.

Exalted about the night’s performance, she was just as taskfully aware in introducing herself after the show: “My name is Karmia, and I’m a teacher for the Russian School of Ballet and for the Youth Russian Ballet Company, and I’m also a principal dancer for them, I do most of the main roles, but alongside that I also teach the small kids who are dancing in the shows.”

She shared her feelings about being on stage for the undeniable stellar performance on stage on the night: “Being on stage is always like going home, it’s this feeling that you can’t describe, you’re always nervous standing backstage, but the moment you go on it’s like everything around you goes silent, and you just live for that moment, and it’s like you never get used to it, each performance has its own feeling, you always think okay after this performance I’ll be better next time, I’ll be more confident or more comfortable, but it’s always the same nerves, but I think it’s not always nerves, it’s also excitement, and yeah it’s just lots of hard work every day, getting up, getting yourself motivated to stand up and exercise for hours on end, and then after your technical class you need to put on your shoes and still do a performance to rehearse to get the performance together, and all of that it takes a lot of mental strength, physical strength, but at the end it’s always worth it. It’s tough while the show lasts, but afterwards you always feel good.”

She remembers her baby steps very well: “I started when I was 06 years old. I’ve been dancing basically all my life. My mother was a dancer, she did ballet, and because of her studies she had to stop. She got me into dancing.I instantly fell in love with it. Since then, like through high school and everything I have been through I’ve just been dancing, dancing, dancing. I never did any other sport because ballet consumes all your time, and yeah if it wasn’t for my mother who had this passion I probably never would have done it. I’m so grateful to her, but yes mostly for my mom, and after that since I was six up until now I’ve just been dancing all these years. I’ve traveled a few times overseas to study there in schools, and then I came back. It has been dancing here and abroad. I joined the Russian School of Ballet in 2019, and I’ve been with them ever since.”

Postma also has words of encouragement for young people considering ballet as a path: “Well I would say ballet develops you in so many different ways. You learn musicality, you get strength, your muscles get flexible. You learn to work as a group without even talking. You need to communicate with other people. It teaches you discipline, to get up every day and force kind of, because sometimes your body is aching, and you’re not in the mood to go into the gym, but you have to stand up, go to class, and just keep pushing through, because to go on stage it’s a complete different feeling, and I can tell you every single dancer who loves dancing, who goes on stage, they can tell you that when you’re there, it’s like you forget about all, every class, every day that you were tired, or you had pain, this is just such, it just gives you a warm feeling, because you have this passion for it.”