371:. She and her husband, Philip Boyd, a former CAPAB dancer whom she had married in 1986, had no children, so they devoted their energies to community service. Appointed head of the David Poole Trust Youth Training Program, she and Boyd ran the Dance for All program initiated by Poole some years earlier. Set up to take dance to underprivileged children living in non-white townships, it was active in Gugulethu, Nyanga, and Khayelitsha on the borders of Cape Town and in the rural inland areas of Barrydale and Montagu. The program reached more than seven hundred children each year.
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at that tender age, she showed talent for dancing. After attending a Hebrew nursery school, she was educated at Orange Grove
Primary School and Waverly High School for Girls, where ballet classes and training for eisteddfods were extracurricular activities. When she was 15, her headmistress, recognizing her exceptional talent, obtained official permission for her to leave school at the end of the tenth grade to pursue her dance training. Soon thereafter, she was offered a chance to attend the
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by the president of South Africa. Following this rare honor, she received South Africa's highest civilian award for excellence, the Order for
Meritorious Service, Gold. In 2000, she received the Molteno Medal from the Cape Tercentenary Foundation for lifetime service to the performing arts. In 2003,
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In 1963, the South
African government had established four professional ballet companies, one in each of the four provinces. The two most vigorous were PACT Ballet, named for the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal, in Johannesburg, and CAPAB Ballet, named for the Cape Performing Arts Board, in
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Born in
Johannesburg, Phyllis Bernice Spira was the first daughter and second child of Lazar and Fanny Pauline (Rosen) Spira, working-class parents who lived in a modest home in the pleasant suburb of Orange Grove. When she was 4 years old, little Phyllis was enrolled in ballet classes, where, even
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Spira remained with the touring group of the Royal Ballet for three years, from 1960 to 1963. Promoted to soloist in 1961, she danced in performances in the
English provinces, continental Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East, and the Far East, making occasional appearances on television in England
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also likened her to
Markova, remarking that they shared "a classical purity of line and delicacy of style wedded to a steely technique." She continued to lead the Cape Town company until 1988, when an injury on the opening night of a new production of
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After a foot injury in August 2007 in London, Spira underwent a series of operations on both her legs. Complications set in and she again underwent vascular surgery, which she did not survive. She died in a Cape Town hospital, aged 64.
333:, wrote that "Spira looked uncannily like Markova as well as having a flavor of Fonteyn, but with an approach of her own." Describing her as "reed-thin and tiny, with huge eyes dominating a gamine face," a writer for the
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also created roles for her and, as artistic director of the company, cast her in many others. Besides classical ballet, Spira was a gifted
Spanish dancer, appearing in Marina Keet's productions of
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in act 1, as a cygnet in acts 2 and 4, and in the
Neapolitan Dance in act 3. Thereupon she was invited to join the Royal Ballet touring company. She was 17 years old at the time.
354:, she was also the recipient of the Lilian Solomon Award and the Bellarte Woman of the Year Award for the Cape Province in 1979, In 1984, she was granted the unusual title of
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Having arrived in London in May 1959, Spira began training at the Royal Ballet School when she was just 16. Her special qualities of movement soon caused favorable comment.
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in London. Despite her parents' concern at the prospect of their teenage daughter living alone in a great foreign city, she was allowed to take the chance.
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After leaving the stage in 1988, Spira served as principal ballet mistress of CAPAB Ballet until 1999, during which time the company was renamed as
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Spira and Burne joined CAPAB Ballet as its principal dancers in 1965, leaving it temporarily in 1967-1968 and moving to
Toronto to dance with the
154:. Awarded a scholarship, Spira progressed quickly through the course of study. After only a few months, she made her debut in a performance of
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she was named a member of the Order of the Disa for her contribution to ballet and the development of ballet in disadvantaged communities.
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Thus was launched the career of a dancer who was much admired in
England and who became "the undisputed queen of ballet in South Africa."
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David Poole, "The South African Way: Four Professional Ballet Companies Subsidized by the Government,"
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Cape Town. Upon returning to her home town, Spira joined PACT Ballet, under the direction of
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Spira received numerous honors and awards during her long career. A two-time winner of the
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Milton Shain and Miriam Pimstone, "Phyllis Spira," Jewish Women's Archive, website,
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Sulcas, "Phyllis Spira, 64, Cape Town Ballerina, Dies," obituary, 17 March 2008.
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in England. Upon returning to South Africa, she spent twenty-eight years as
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Comparisons with Alicia Markova were persistent. Peter Williams, editor of
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and Japan. Among the featured and leading roles in her repertory were the
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Roslyn Sulcas, "Phyllis Spira, 64, Cape Town Ballerina, Dies," obituary,
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Shain and Pimstone, "Phyllis Spira," Jewish Women's Archive, website,
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Shain and Pimstone, "Phyllis Spira," Jewish Women's Archive, website,
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University of Cape Town News, Monday Paper, Archives, website,
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Drawing of the book "A Dancer’s Tale", about the life of Spira.
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Spira's repertory ranged widely, varying from the lyrical (
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Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell "Spira, Phyllis," in
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South African Prima Ballerina Assoluta (1943 - 2008)
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447:(Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1981), p. 201.
290:(1966), set to music by Aram Katchaturian, and
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486:(London) June 1994, pp. 879, 881.
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395:(Oxford University Press, 2000).
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363:Later life
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