World Ballet Day Highlights #1: The Royal Academy of Dance

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World Ballet Day came just as theatres and studios across the UK were emerging from a 7-month hibernation.  It was a day of optimism.  Sadly that optimism has been dampened by the announcement on Saturday of another lockdown in England.  The sudden closure of studios and theatres is devastating; It is therefore all the more vital to hang on to that optimism. One way to do that is to remember the highlights of World Ballet Day. Over the next few days, I shall recall some of my most memorable moments.  

I begin with the Royal Academy of Dance.  The RAD is an institution that educates students at all levels, of all ages in all parts of the world.  Its contribution to World Ballet Day summarized its work exactly.  The Academy's Artistic Director, Gerard Charles, and its President, Darcey Bussell, opened the clip. The first half featured the work of three RAD teachers in Peru, Kenya and Australia while in the second Dame Darcy coached Anya Mercer, a student at the English National Ballet School and a finalist in last year's Genée in the second female solo of the pas de trois in Act 1 of Swan Lake.

When I first started blogging about dance I mentioned the work of Mike Wamaya who teaches ballet in Kibera, one of the most impoverished neighbourhoods of Nairobi (see What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013). In Recognition for the Kibera Ballet Class  9 Jan 2017 I noted that some of those students had been accepted for training at the Dance Centre Kenya with Ms Cooper Rust.  In the video, Ms Rust taught a class of boys who showed considerable enthusiasm as well as aptitude for their art.

Nairobi is a conurbation of over 9 million people where there is the possibility of exposure to the performing arts through the press and broadcasting.  Such a possibility is much less in the upper reaches of the Amazon where the Nevada Building Hope Foundation operates.  One of its teachers is Barbara Land.  In the video, Ms Land explains how she introduced ballet to local children. They were enchanted and wanted to learn. 

As an RAD teacher, Ms Land was able to train the Peruvian kids to the same exacting standards as the young  Sydneysiders in Hilary Kaplan's class at the Alegria Dance Studios in Australia.  Australia has given the world some of its greatest dancers from Sir Robert Helpmann and Elaine Fifield to Alexander Campbell who was my male dancer of the year for 2019.  After watching Ms Kappan's class for a few minutes, I think we can understand why.  Excellence is baked into ballet at the very earliest opportunity.

Dame Darcey's session with Anya Mercer was a masterclass for her audience as well as for that promising young dancer.   It is a thrilling solo particularly the turns at the end.   Dame Darcey discerned details that I had never noticed before. Her pupil has shown considerable promise to reach this point.  I wish her well with her studies and subsequent career.

My next article will feature the Royal New Zealand Ballet's company class and preparation for the opening performance of The Sleeping Beauty in an apparently coronavirus fee Wellington.

Isabelle Brouwers in Kibera

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Over 4 years have elapsed since I first wrote about Mike Wamaya's ballet class in Kibera (see What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013). The world took an interest in that class towards the end of last year when The Guardian featured it on its Facebook page and other news outlets followed suit (see Recognition for the Kibera Ballet Class 9 Jan 2017).

Shortly after that feature appeared, dancers and companies in Britain offered help.  Birmingham Royal Ballet sent pointe shoes to the class (see Thank you Birmingham Royal Ballet 17 Jan 2017). Yesterday, after being reminded of its blog by Feedspot (see We hate to blow our own trumpet but .... 28 March 2017) I read that Isabelle Brouwers of English National Ballet had actually been to Kibera and given a class there (see Isabelle Brouwers teaches ballet to Kenyan children in Kibera slum 8 Feb 2017 ENB Blog).

I have always had a lot of affection for English National Ballet ever since I attended their Christmas performances of The Nutcracker at the Festival Hall. I have a high regard for that company and their artistic director, Tamara Rojo, not only for their work on stage but also for their work for the community, and in particular, their classes for patients with Parkinson's disease (see ENB's Big Give to Dance for Parkinson's 25 Nov 2016). It came as no surprise to read:

"Backed up by my ever supporting parents, and my wonderful colleagues and Artistic Director Tamara Rojo at the English National Ballet, who helped me gather an incredible amount of dancewear and shoe donations, I was all set for what I knew would be one of the most eye opening and life changing events of my life!"

The article on Brouwers's visit is a very good read and I commend it to my own readers.

I also commend the triple bill of ballets by Pina Bausch, William Forsythe and Hans van Manen at Sadler's Wells this week which I wish I could get to see.  If any of my readers wants to offer me a review I will be very pleased to publish it.

Recognition for the Kibera Ballet Class

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I first wrote about Mike Wamaya's ballet class in Nairobi in What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013:

"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."

I mentioned them again in Back to Africa 7 Jan 2015, Revisiting Kenya with Obama 25 July 2015 and Al Jazeera features the Ballet Class in the Nairobi Slums 19 Oct 2016.

In the last of those posts, I mentioned that students from Kibera were taking classes at the Dance Centre Kenya which is directed by the US dancer Cooper Rust. On 3 and 4 Dec 2016, some of those dancers took part in the Dance Centre Kenya's performance of The Nutcracker at the Kenya National Theatre (see Dance Performance: The Nutcracker by Dance Centre Kenya, Dec. 3 & 4 2016 @ the Kenya National Theatre 2 Dev 2016 Nairobi Now :: arts, culture and events). Those performances were, of course, big news in Kenya (see Billy Odidi Holiday season starts with ‘The Nutcracker’ dance 1 Dec 2016 Business Daily) but the class was noticed internationally.   The Huffington Post featured the artists in  Striking Photos Of The Ballet Program Bringing Strength To One Of Africa’s Biggest Slums 14 Dec 2016 and now The Guardian has added a film about them to its Facebook page.

Now that this remarkable initiative has been discovered it is important not to forget it. These kids need encouragement and resources and it is important to build on what has already been achieved.

Al Jazeera features the Ballet Class in the Nairobi Slums

Kibera, Nairobi

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Source Wikipedia

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One of the first posts that I published was What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013. At the time it was my most popular article clocking up 434 hits almost overnight. It featured a remarkable ballet class in Kibera, a district of Nairobi described by Wikipedia as "the largest slum in Nairobi, and the largest urban slum in Africa," taught by a remarkable teacher, Mike Wamaya.

As I think that Africans will make an enormous contribution to ballet (and indeed all the performing arts as well as the humanities, sciences and civilisation generally) I have revisited the topic several times (see Back to Africa 7 Jan 2015 and Revisiting Kenya with Obama 25 July 2015 and Ballet in Sub-Saharan Africa 30 April 2016). I am glad to see that the Qatari news broadcaster Al-Jazeera has also taken an interest in that class. It posted a video entitled Ballet in Kenya is a beautiful thing to its Facebook page on 15 Oct 2016 which has already attracted nearly a million hits, 12,000 "loves" or "likes" and over 16,000 shares.

Al-Jazeera has also published an article by Fredrik Lerneryd entitled Kenyan children learn ballet at Kibera slum 14 Sep 2016 Al-Jazeera. It contains pictures of Mr. Wamaya's class in Kibera and also at a school in Karen, a rather more affluent neighbourhood, where some of Mr. Wamaya's older students take lessons. In the article Mr Lerneryd refers to Cooper Rust, a US dancer who is artistic director of Dance Centre Kenya. She says that the children from Kibera prove to be just as good as those from Karen despite their lack of resources and facilities.

Most of the comments on Al-Jazeera's Facebook page are favourable but there are exceptions. One lady asks:

"To what use exactly? The charity should instead teach them practical skills that will be useful later in life"

A  gentleman opines:

"Ballerina? Very good dream but it must be stopped! Kenya is an ancient land with a rich and colourful past, there are many aspects of Kenyan culture that can be embraced by Kenyan youths. Why are Africans still living like colonial subjects? Helping sustain European language, religion, culture, economy at the expense of Africa and African culture! Stop"

Try telling a boy or girl from any country or social background who feels compelled to dance to stop? Fat chance! The Kenyan TV station K24TV has a posted the video Ballet dance slowly gaining popularity among children in Kenya which shows that ballet is beginning to gain traction at all levels of Kenyan society. Another station KTN News shows Kenyan students training in Norway.

Ballet is no longer European. Look at the dancers from South America, East Asia and, increasingly, from South Africa in the companies of the world. Kenyans will soon be as proud of their dancers as they are of their long distance runners.

Another Great Teacher

One of my very first and most popular posts was about the Kenyan dance teacher, Mike Wamaya, who gave ballet classes to kids from one of the roughest neighbourhoods of Nairobi and raised their aspirations not just in dance but in everything they do (see What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013). I revisited Mike's dance class in Back to Africa 7 Jan 2015 and Revisiting Kenya with Obama 25 July 2015).

I have now come across another remarkable teacher called Tuany Nascimento who does very similar work in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro (see Taylor Barnes How a Ballet School in the Slums of Brazil Is Changing Girls' Lives 27 April 2016 Marie Claire and Sarah Grossman Ballet Class For Girls In Rio Slum Is Free With Good Report Cards 10 June 2016 Huffington Post reported by Network Dance). A film has been made of her by Nownesss entitled Dancing for the Future 25 May 2016 which is also on Vimeo and she has a website called Na Punto Dos Pés or On Pointe.

Dance has made an enormous difference to my life. I took my first ballercise lesson when I was at my lowest ebb one month after losing my late spouse to motor neurone disease and just a few months after literally life changing surgery of my own during which time I had to run down my practice. Ballercise led to ballet which I took up at the grand old age of 64. My classes gave me something to which I could look forward and gradually restored my confidence and hope. The discipline for class is a discipline for life which can be applied to anything. I used it to restore my practice and rebuild my life.

I have been exceptionally privileged having been educated at the same secondary school as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the same university as the heir to the throne and one of America's greatest research universities. If dance can do so much for me imagine what it can do for Mike Wamaya's kids in Nairobi or Tuany Nascimento's in Rio.

Gaza Ballet School

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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).

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.

Back to Africa

One of my most popular articles when I started this blog was What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013. It was about the classes given by the remarkable Mike Wamaya to kids in one of the poorest and toughest neighbourhoods of Nairobi.

I am returning to the topic again because of a news item on the class on the RAD website. It is headed "Former Faculty of Education student, Amy Shelton, gives a fascinating insight into her personal experiences of teaching ballet to children in Kenya in this month’s edition of Dancing Times," The students are up to date with the new RAD syllabus and as you can see from the film above and those in my earlier post they are as diligent and ambitious as any in the world. I have high hopes that some of  Wamaya's kids will perform one day at Covent Garden and the Met.

What Wamaya has done in Kenya could be repeated elsewhere in Africa including Sierra Leone. That country has already produced Michaela DePrince. It is going through a terrible trial right now just as it did two decades ago when DePrince was born. Sierra Leone survived the civil war and it will survive ebola but, as I said in  Could the Arts not do something about this horrible Scourge 8 Oct 2014,  "Sierra Leone and its neighbours will need massive help in rebuilding their economic, social and cultural institutions when the immediate crisis is over."

A ballet school for Freetown may seem an odd priority for a country that needs to be rebuilt but men's minds and souls need feeding as well as their bellies and dance provides some of that food. We know that from our own experience for it was the Vic-Wells Ballet that kept us going during the Second World War (see David Bintley's Dancing in the Blitz: How World War 2 made British Ballet BBC website) just as it helped generations of Russians survive decades of famine, war and oppression. Look what Wamaya has achieved in Kenya. Why not the same in Kroo Town, Kissy or Kenema?

Further Reading
28 Nov 2014  Michaela DePrince at TEDx Amsterdam

Catching them young

The combination of colour, drama, movement and music often set to a familiar fairy story can capture a child's imagination. Once captured the experience can lead to a lifetime's pleasure unless soured by compulsory ballet lessons on a Saturday morning in a draughty church hall.

In contrast to other children's media, ballet sends out some positive messages. It is the one art form in which women have always enjoyed at least equality with men. Great for the self-confidence of girls who may not want to dance on stage but have ambitions in other fields: see how ballet works for kids from a rough neighbourhood in Nairobi in What can be achieved by a good teacher 3 March 2013. Ballet also sends messages for boys in that women are to be cherished and respected - not insulted, molested or ravished. How a ballerina stands en pointe or turns on pirouette contains useful lessons on mechanics and mathematics for both genders. Getting kids moving in a studio instead of slouching in front of the telly or a tablet with a milkshake and burger would save the NHS billions. Perhaps most importantly of all ballet - unlike Disney animations - is palpably real. Dancers may do wonderful things with their leaps and turns but they are still human beings - in many cases just a few years older than their audience.

So how to get a young child hooked on all this positivity? The great Spanish educationalist St Ignatius de Loyola is reputed to have said "Give me a child to the age of 7 and I will show you the man". The problem with ballets like The Nutcracker and Cinderella is that they last too long for the under sevens. The answer is to choreograph a ballet for that age group and that is something that English National Ballet has done spectacularly well with its My First Ballet series. Last year it was Coppelia which I reviewed on 14 April 2014 and this year it is Swan Lake. Vlad the Lad who will be four in December and is the nearest I have to a grandson said it was "awesome" which is a big word for a three year old. He enjoyed the show so much that he even sat through a performance in which his real less-than-fairy-more-like-hippo-godmother had the time of her life in Leeds.

But Vlad was even more impressed by Chris Marney's Dogs Don't Do Ballet for Ballet Black and he actually had the pleasure of meeting Mr Marney as well as Cassa Pancho. She is the nearest he will ever get to meeting a fairy godmother in that she made possible the wonders that took place before his very eyes. Bless you Chris and Cassa and all your wonderful dancers, particularly Madame Kanikova whose predicament with the French horn was of real concern to Vlad.

So what else can children of Vlad's age see? My beloved Northern is touring the nation with elves and the shoemaker building on its success with Three Little Pigs and The Ugly Duckling.  Birmingham Royal Ballet is presenting First Steps: a child's Coppelia to kids in Edinburgh and Manchester in the Spring. Just across the North Sea Ernst Meisner's The Little Big Chest for the Dutch National Ballet seems to have been a runaway success in Amsterdam - easier to reach and cheaper to stay in than London for many of us in the UK. For slightly older children there is the Royal Ballet's The Mad Hatter's Tea Party and maybe Chantry Dance's The Happy Prince.

If I have time I will arrange a resource page of children's ballet's with reviews and information about prices, times and venues.

Post Script

22 Nov 2014   After watching The Happy Prince in Halifax on Thursday I ran into Paul Chantry and Rae Piper in the Square Chapel bar. I told them that I had enjoyed the show and would have loved to have taken Vlad the Lad to see it at the Wells but their performance would take place way after his bedtime. They replied that they intend to take the show into children's theatre in the next few months so I should be able to take him to see it. I will blog the dates, times and venues of those performances just as soon as I hear about them.

Also I have some good news for Northern kids. Cassa Pancho tweeted that Ballet Black are coming back to Leeds shortly with Dogs Don't Do Ballet so I shall let you all know when they are coming.