An honorary doctorate was awarded to Veronica Williams posthumously by UCT on July 21 and on Saturday a celebration of her life was held at the Baxter Theatre.
Veronica was born on June 19, 1943. She was an amazing person who lived through the apartheid years and was a vociferous opponent of apartheid.
She was born to Charles Williams and Christina Blows. From a young age, she showed an interest in music and dance.
At 9, she danced the role of Little Red Riding Hood at the Cape Town City Hall accompanied by the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra.
Veronica’s family was removed from District Six because of the Group Areas Act. Her family moved to Bridgetown, Athlone.
She married Michael Williams in 1963. They have two sons, Brent and Jay. In 1968, at 25, she started the Wilvan School of Ballet in Kensington.
From the beginning, she fought for non-racialism, non-sexism, and non-sectarianism. The Wilvan School was not for profit. The only requirement for admission was a desire to dance. She drew students from all over Cape Town.
Throughout its 45-year existence, from 1968 to 2013, no teacher was reimbursed for teaching. Veronica obtained teaching qualifications in ballet at UCT in 1971.
The Wilvan School expanded to include Greek dance, contemporary dance, and Spanish dance, including flamenco.
Veronica was a member of the New Unity Movement, and in the world of music and dance, she was politically conscious. She loved flamenco because it is a dance of art and political resistance. She regularly made self-funded trips to Spain. In 2005, with the help of the Spanish Consulate, she took 16 Wilvan students to Spain for a threeweek flamenco course.
Despite devoting much time to dancing, she also held down a fulltime job at a high school. She certainly added excellence to this great school, Livingstone High, in Claremont.
In this column, I cannot give the reader an in-depth picture of this remarkable woman whom I had the privilege of knowing.
I have taken excerpts from her life from a booklet issued at the commemoration ceremony held for her at the Baxter Theatre. She died on October 8, 2022.
* Brian Isaacs.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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