Poole had returned to South Africa several times over the years to stage works for the University of Cape Town Ballet. On his first visit, in 1952, he mounted Ashton's
Les Rendezvous, Cranko's
Sea Change, and a version of the final act of
The Nutcracker, set in the Kingdom of the Sweets. In 1957, he staged Ashton's
Les Patineurs and Cranko's
Beauty and the Beast, in which he partnered Patricia Miller, another South African who had trained and danced in London. He also produced his own version of
The Firebird, set to the Stravinsky score. For the Union Festival in May 1960 he staged two one-act works by South African choreographers:
Blood Wedding by Rodrigues and
Pineapple Poll by Cranko. In 1961, he mounted a full, three-act version of
Sylvia, to the score by Delibes, a spectacular work that was later, in 1963, produced in Johannesburg. In 1963, the South African government granted subsidies to support ballet companies in the four provinces that existed at the time: the Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal. Poole was employed as ballet master of the University of Cape Town Ballet and was responsible for staging a full-evening production of
The Sleeping Beauty, with choreography after Marius Petipa. When UCT Ballet became a full-time, professional company in 1965, it was renamed the Cape Performing Arts Board Ballet (CAPAB Ballet). Poole continued as ballet master of CAPAB Ballet (since renamed the
Cape Town City Ballet) and, upon the retirement of Dulcie Howes in 1969, became the artistic director in 1970. Among the original works he created for the company are
The Snow Queen (1961), to music by Tchaikovsky, ''A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1970), to music by Handel, and Variations for Men'' (1983), to music by Khachaturian. Notable among the ballets that Poole mounted for CAPAB Ballet are three works on South African themes:
Le Cirque (1972),
The Rain Queen (1973), and
Kami (1976). Both
Le Cirque, set to music by Bach, and
Kami, based on a play by
C. Louis Leipoldt,
Die Laaste Aand (
The Last Evening), and set to music by Bizet and Michael Tuffin, deal with the government policy of
apartheid (literally, "apart-hood"), the major social issue in twentieth-century South Africa.
Le Cirque was a dramatic attack on government repression;
Kami (Sanskrit, "of fulfilled desires") was a grim tale of interracial marriage and the mysterious death of a government official.
The Rain Queen, a work conceived by choreographer
Frank Staff, was set to a commissioned score by Graham Newcater and had décor and costumes by Raimond Schoop. Telling the legend of Modjadji, the hereditary queen of the
Lobedu people who was thought to have the power to bring rain to a drought-stricken land, it was planned as the first full-length ballet with a scenario derived from an indigenous South African legend. Poole dedicated the ballet to the memory of Staff, a revered and renowned South African artist. Besides these original works, Poole enriched the company repertory with new productions of classic ballets, including
Giselle, Le Corsaire, Coppélia, and
Swan Lake. Not only an accomplished choreographer and a visionary company director, he was a superb teacher of classical technique, mime, and stagecraft, raising the levels of performance and training in the company to a significant degree. In 1974, upon the retirement of Dulcie Howes, he was appointed principal of the UCT Ballet School. He also served as professor of ballet until 1986 and as director of the company until his retirement in 1990. ==Legacy==