Thank you Birmingham Royal Ballet

Birmingham Royal Ballet's Studios

(c) 2016 Jane Lambert: all rights reserved

As readers know, one of my interests is Africa.  Ever since I first heard of it, I have been beating the drum for Mike Wamaya's class in the Kibera district of Nairobi.  In Recognition for the Kibera Ballet Class 9 Jan 2017 I reported that the mainstream media had begun to take an interest in those students. The Guardian had posted a film about a film about them to its Facebook page and the Huffington Post had run a feature on them.

The Birmingham Royal Ballet saw this publicity and decided to help. Here's what they said in an email that they circulated earlier today:

"We have recently been inspired by an article from The Guardian about a ballet school in Kibera, Nairobi; a 'slum' home to 700,000 people. The young dancers there mainly learn to dance barefoot and rely on donated shoes to learn advanced techniques that can be used in performance. We were incredibly moved and inspired by their talent and hard work, so we rounded up as many pointe shoes as we could to send over via Anno's Africa with our best wishes and warmest compliments on their work."

I think that's lovely.  That news really cheered me up.

I don't know whether Mike's students have all the pointe shoes they well need other things.  Scholarships to train abroad as Joel Kioko has done is one possibility,  I shall follow this story like a terrier and report anything new.

Revisiting Kenya with Obama

President Obama's visit to Kenya has reminded me of Mike Wamaya's ballet classes in one of the toughest districts of Nairobi. I wrote about them in What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013 and Back to Africa 7 Jan 2015. I have found an interview with this remarkable teacher with this video of some of his students on the International Performers Aid trust website.

In his interview Wamaya says:

"Since the set up of Anno’s Africa in Kenya seven years ago, we have experienced significant results. The children now find school fun and by this their levels of concentration while studying have gone up. The program explores their individual human potential and creativity in a much broader sense; who they are, what they think and believe, what they want for their futures. This has brought a lot of confidence and self-esteem in them."

It is clear from the interview that Wamaya's students have learned some valuable lessons from his classes quite apart from pliés and tendus. 

According to the About IPAT page of its website "the International Performers’ Aid Trust is a charity created for the relief of poverty amongst people involved in the performing arts in distress in all parts of the world."  It supports projects in Africa, Asia, South America, Europe and the Middle East, Mike Wamaya's classes seem to be its only dance project.

Unless a student from Sub-Saharan Africa leaves for an advanced country at a very young age it is hard to see how he or she could make a career in ballet. There are very few schools and even fewer companies between the Mediterranean and the Cape and the few that do exist are concentrated in South Africa. But Africa is changing. It is becoming more prosperous and greater prosperity will provide a market for the performing arts. Even if few of Wamaya's students make it on stage a fair proportion of them should be able to afford the best seats in the auditorium and thereby provide a market for the next generation.

Ballet Black: "we don't talk about stuff, we just do it."

Cassa Pancho, Source: BBC Ballet Black opens up dance world 11 Oct 2011

Cassa Pancho, the founder and artistic director of Ballet Black has just posted a very thoughtful and interesting article to her company's Facebook page. It discusses a number of issues including race and ballet which she generally tries to avoid for several reasons, one of which is that Ballet Black does not talk about stuff it just does it. Rather than comment on the article I urge you to read it for yourself.

I should however like to develop one point that Cassa Pancho makes in her article which is that:

"the future lies in young children attending ballet classes around the country, who are not yet old enough to be judged as professionals." 

Now this is true of all dancers and not just those of African or South Asian heritage but Ballet Black helps to promote diversity in ballet in a rather special way. It runs a a junior ballet school in Shepherd's Bush "where children of all colours, creed, shape and gender are welcome" and an associate programme for "vocational dance school, professional dancers, retired dancers, in-between-jobs dancers and people who aren't pros but love ballet and have enough skill to keep up" open to people of every colour which "are taught by people who excel in their field AND are of black or Asian descent." By so doing the company is not just offering inspiration to kids of all classes and cultures through its principal dancers, it is creating an environment in which ballet is perceived less as something that is elitist and European and more as an art form that folk of all races, nationalities, religions, classes and cultures can own.

Ballet Black does great work which deserves the public's support and the public can support that work through the company's Just Giving page.

However, Ballet Black works in an advanced country. As there is no reason to suppose that talent is concentrated in any particular country or ethnic group there must be far more folk with talent that is never developed in countries or communities where there are no ballet schools or even companies than those who rise to the top in countries like the UK where such institutions exist.

One such dancer is Michaela DePrince of the Junior Company of the National Ballet of the Netherlands.  I have written about her in two articles "No Holds Barred" 4 Oct 2013 and Michaela DePrince 4 April 2013. The reason I have taken an interest in her - other than that I have been impressed by the videos of her that I have seen on YouTube - is that she comes from Sierra Leone and that is a country I know better than most as I was married for nearly 30 years to a Sierra Leonean. According to her video she was attracted to ballet by a photo of a dancer that she found in a magazine outside her orphanage and she was given the opportunity to study ballet only by the happenstance that she was adopted by folk from the USA where her talent could be identified and nurtured.

A charity that is working in another African country is Anno's Africa. I blogged about their work in Mathare, a particularly deprived area of Nairobi in "What can be achieved by a good teacher" on 3 March 2013. In that article I wrote:

"In many ways the kids in this class have had the worst possible start in life but in one very important respect they could not have had a better one. Look at the teacher, Mike Wamaya. He is good."

According to Anno Africa's blog the company now has another teacher from the United States who has danced professionally. I have Googled her and found a YouTube video that suggests she is very good.  Would it not be lovely if one of the students from Mathare presented him or herself to Cassa Pancho or indeed David Nixon, David Bintley or Christopher Hampson for audition one of these days!

Anno's Africa also has a Facebook page and a Just Giving page if you are feeling generous but please continue to support Ballet Black and all our other schools and companies as well.

Michaela DePrince

Readers of this blog will have guessed that I love Africa which is why I wrote about Anno's Africa work in the rough neighbourhoods of Nairobi in "What can be achieved by a good teacher". Some might even have guessed from my clip of Lady Feli in "Happy Mother's Day" that I have a connection with Sierra Leone.

The reason I love Africa is that my late spouse came from Sierra Leone which is one of the smallest and poorest countries on that continent.  I visited Sierra Leone in 2007 when it was still recovering from a vicious civil war. The people there the kindest and most courteous that I had ever known. However, the massive number of young people missing an arm or a leg in Freetown indicated that at least some Sierra Leoneans were capable of the utmost cruelty.

Imagine my delight when I read "The Unstoppable Ballerina: A young dancer’s journey from Sierra Leone to the heights of American ballet" by Malcolm Jones in The Daily Beast of 2 April 2013. This is article about Michaela DePrince.  This young woman is not just a promising dancer plucked out of Africa.  She is clearly exceptional.   As Jones says in his article:

"In her 18 years, Michaela has experienced more than most people do in a full lifetime. Dancing since she was 6, she won a scholarship to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of the American Ballet Theatre after competing against 5,000 other young dancers in the prestigious Youth American Grand Prix, an annual competition showcased in the acclaimed 2011 documentary First Position. One of six aspiring dancers the film profiled, Michaela, then 14, supplied the most heart-in-throat moments when she stubbornly danced through a case of tendonitis that threatened to kill her career before it even started."

I have Googled DePrince and found her website which is full of lovely photos. I can't wait to see her in England.

I know a little boy in Thamesmead who is half Sierra Leonean and half Ghanaian who knows nothing of ballet but can rotate his legs and perform perfect sauté and almost an arabesque quite naturally. I am trying to persuade his mum to let him take lessons.  Up to now she has been sceptical but perhaps DePrince's example will help change her mind.

Update
5 Oct 2013  DePrince is now with the Junior Company of the National Ballet of the Netherlands which is a lot closer than New York City (see "No Holds Barred" 4 Oct 2013).

What can be achieved by a good teacher

I was looking for material on the general election in Kenya and I came across the above clip.  

In  many ways the kids in this class have had the worst possible start in life but in one very important respect they could not have had a better one.   Look at the teacher, Mike Wamaya.  He is good.  I googled for some more information on Mike and I found an even better clip from CNN and this article in The Daily Nation.  These films show what can be achieved from the discipline not only in the studio but also in the class room and in life generally.   Something that I and most readers of this blog in many walks of life are likely to have found out for ourselves.

The charity that employs Mike Wamaya is Anno's Africa "a UK based charity that offers an alternative, arts education to orphans and vulnerable children in some of Africa’s most desperately deprived city slums."   It was set up in memory of Anno Birkin a writer and musician who died just before his 21st birthday.   It is supported by some of the biggest names in the arts.

Who knows whether any of the children in the clips will find their way on to the stage or even to the audience of the Royal Opera House or the Met but they will certainly live fuller lives as a result of their exposure to their art.   

Incidentally, ballet is just one of the many activities of this charity as you can see from the promo.    If ever there was a cause worth supporting it is this one.   There are many ways you can contribute to its work.   Whichever way you choose I hope you will do so generously.