250,000 Plus and Counting

Yesterday in the early hours of the morning we received our 250,000th page hit. We are now on 251,382 having received 1,246 hits in one day, mainly on my preview of Christopher Hampson's Hansel & Gretel (see Hampson's Hänsel and Gretel comes to Newcastle 31 Jan 2017). In fact, my readers seem to love Scottish Ballet for my most popular article with 10,776 page hits including 22 this morning is Dawson's Swan Lake comes to Liverpool 29 May 2016. In January we scored 21,989 views which is slightly down on December's total of 25,914 but we have started strongly in February with 348 page views this morning.

I should like to thank all my regular contributors, Alison Winward, David Murley, Joanna Goodman and Mel Wong and all those who have contributed occasional articles such as Gita Mistry, Helen McDonough, Janet McNulty, Mary Howard, Peter Groves and Wendy McDermott.

Tonight I am the guest of CAST in Doncaster to see ŻfinMalta Dance Ensemble, Malta's national dance company, which I previewed in ŻfinMalta Dance Ensemble's UK Tour 17 Jan 2017. It promises to be a good evening,

Gaza Ballet School

Standard YouTube Licence


I am grateful to Alison Winward, one of my fellow students at KNT, for drawing the Gaza ballet school to my attention. "Did you know there's a ballet school in Gaza?" she wrote. "I thought that was just awesome." I agree. In that 141 square mile strip of territory in which nearly 2 million people are crammed and which has been subject to regular bombardment for nearly 70 years, it is comforting to read of this beacon of culture and education.

Ballet classes take place at the premises of the AM Qattan Foundtion, a British charity that promotes the arts and education in Palestine and Lebanon. The school was featured in a report for Reuters by Nidal al-Mughrabi entitled Pirouettes and plenty of pink at Gaza's only ballet school 30 Nov 2915 which was picked up by newspapers around the world including the Daily Mail.

Reports like this remind us that ballet belongs to the world and not just to countries that are predominately white or relatively wealthy. One of the first articles that I published was about a remarkable teacher in Kenya called Mike Wamaya and his work in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Nairobi (see What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013). Michaela DePrince, one of the most exciting young dancers in the world, was inspired to dance while she was still a child in Sierra Leone (see Michaela DePrince at TEDx Amsterdam 28 Nov 2014). I have heard that it is her ambition to see a ballet school in Freetown and if it is not hers then it is certainly mine (see A Ballet School for Freetown 20 May 2014).