These were the stars:

Joaquín De Luz, Andrea Schermoly, Ana-Maria Lucaciu, Ashley Bouder, Amar Ramasar, Emilie Gerrity, Indiana Woodward, Adiarys Almeida, Isaac Hernandez, Jonhal Fernandez, Joseph Gatti, Michaela DePrince. This page is for you guys.

For the rest: Stars of American Ballet was dreamed up by entrepreneur Dirk Badenhorst as a way to acquaint South Africans with the Yankee take-no-prisoners style of dance. After shows in Johannesburg, we decamped to a game reserve for the strangest ballet event, possibly ever. You can read about Ballet in the Bush here.

Joaquín De Luz put this A-Team together. Everyone got along, almost magically so. Here’s some of what happened.

This bird got drunk

These street performers

turned a couple of floppy hats into a beautiful spectacle

These lions allowed some petting.

Then they tried to eat Indiana.

This restaurant,

the world’s door to Soweto, got tagged.

We learned that the Circle of Life

does not include too much foreplay.

Ashley and Alexander

Dirk shared

his mad, brilliant idea with the world.

Adi demonstrated

that she is from some other planet.

But the whole group

was some variety of hot shit amazing.

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Every bike here

comes with an impala guard, standard.

Gatti’s command of popular movie quotes

was eerie. Like, Rain Man-eerie.

Joaquín’s mom.

This lady. One minute she was sitting under an umbrella at the Gold Reef amusement park, eating lunch. Then the square was invaded with dancers and she completely took over.

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In the wings:

the flip side of grace.

We bought some souvenirs.

This was the shop where I used all 78 versions of "No thank you" that I know, plus a few more invented on the spot.

We left the bosom of civilization

and hit the scenic Bush.

photo: Indiana Woodward

Amar came up with a lovely metaphor.

So often it’s not just what you say, but the way you say it that really touches people.

We learned that African winter mornings are cold.

Cold. Extremely cold. Like, say good-bye to your genitals cold.

Ari had a grim sense of humor.

After years of running the Rhino Orphanage, this guy knows pretty much everything about the animal. Somewhat less about ballet.

Massive points went to Ashley

for so innocently suggesting the thing that definitely needed to happen.

This move.

I’m still not sure what it means, but I like it.

Everybody liked everybody.

Here’s a big fat shameless love-fest. Enjoy.

After, there was a party.

And Gatti was God. If moves could stop poachers, we’d be done already.

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And here’s some of what we saw later

in Kruger National Park. It’s a vast expanse of wild, dotted with encampments—caged compounds for humans—connected by roads.

Joaquín with famed Amarula liqueur. It’s made from fruit that ferments on the ground after falling, and elephants get happily drunk eating it. Jo figured that if it can retard elephants, two bottles might be enough for him. Mostly, I remember him sleeping during this period.

Baby baboons have style.

I saw a hyena

with the severed leg of another hyena dangling from its teeth. I don’t have or need any pictures, because the image is burned into my mind for good. Hyena shit is white. So is leopard shit. How to tell them apart? Leopard shit has fur in it. We learned this while walking through the Bush with our guides Pilot and Clifford.

And we larked around, like people on holiday.

photo: Ana Maria Lucaciu

Before we left,

Master Joaquín was struck by a last brilliant notion. Which see:

Thanks, good people