Page 32 - atoday

A32 FEATURE
Thursday 29 december 2016
16-year-old pivots from a Kenyan slum to the ballet stage

KHALED KAZZIHA people opportunities,” said
Associated Press Christy Adair, professor of
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — In dance studies at Britain’s
a country not usually asso- York St. John University and
ciated with classical ballet, a prominent voice on eth-
a 16-year-old dancer leaps nicity in dance. But she
onto the stage, his gravity- added: “I think there’s a
defying turns taking the au- kind of arrogance in the
dience’s breath away. ballet organizations, where
Joel Kioko is arguably they think theirs is the way
Kenya’s most promising for training for dance. ...
young ballet dancer. Cur- Contemporary technique
rently training in the United is more open to other
States, he has come home people’s movement pat-
for Christmas - and is danc- terns and practices and
ing a solo in a Nairobi pro- experiences and heritages,
duction of “The Nutcrack- which ballet isn’t.”
er” while he’s here. Wamaya acknowledged
“He’s the real deal,” said the criticism. “People say
Dance Centre Kenya’s ar- sometimes, why are you
tistic director, Cooper Rust. not teaching them, for in-
“I’m pushing him to go for stance, African dance or
the stars. Paris Opera, Royal In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, Kenyan ballet dancer Joel Kioko, 16, center, dances in a hip hop?” he said. “Yes, it’s
performance of The Nutcracker in Nairobi, Kenya.
Ballet, here we come! Even a Western thing coming in,
who raised him and his we’re doing it in a serious but it’s dance, and dance
sister in a one-bedroom level,” Wamaya said. “We is diverse, you know? To
shack shared with an aunt are doing it to make them me, it’s not about bal-
and a grandmother. “It was have a career at the end.” let as a dance style, but
just ballet, ballet, ballet. So But not everyone is ap- it’s about the discipline
I saw that he was happy, plauding. that ballet has in itself as a
and so I was happy too.” “I can see it gives young dance technique.”
Now others are pursuing
dance as a way out of pov-
erty. At the beginning of
the school year, children in
Kibera try out for the ballet
classes, which are funded
by charities Anno’s Africa
In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, young ballerinas prac- and One Fine Day.
tice under the instruction of Kenyan ballet dancer Joel Kioko, 16, Michael Wamaya, a finalist
left, in a room at a school in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya.
Associated Press for the 2017 Global Teach-
er Prize, teaches dance
teacher, Rust, about him. to around 100 kids a week
if Joel ends up in a more re- “From the beginning, when in Nairobi’s Kibera and
gional company, it will be he joined the ballet, there Mathare slums.
incredible.” was nothing else he could “At the end of the day, In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, young ballerinas prac-
Kioko grew up in Nairobi’s talk about,” said Kioko’s we’re not just training them tice under the instruction of Kenyan ballet dancer Joel Kioko, 16,
left, in a room at a school in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya.
Kuwinda slum and took his mother, Angela Kamene, to have dance for fun, Associated Press
first dance class five years
ago in a public school
classroom, with bare walls, As the only son in a family
no barre and no mirror, the growing up without a fa-
desks and chairs pushed ther, Kioko laughed at the
outside. notion that some people
Now he’s teaching holiday might consider a man in
classes to aspiring dancers tights, dancing classical
in Kibera, the Kenyan capi- ballet, to be unmanly. He
tal’s biggest slum. was teased by some in his
“I don’t know what I could neighborhood about the
have done without ballet, dancing, he said, but he
without dancing,” Kioko never had to fight.
said. “I don’t even know if “Where I came from there
I could have been existing, is poverty, there is stealing,
it’s weird to say, but dance, there is drugs,” Kioko said.
it’s everything to me.” “You have to be a man to
His encounter with bal- live in where we live. ... It’s
let happened by chance like a lion in the jungle, you
when he was 11. He was have to show that you are
discovered by a fellow the male there, you are the
dance student who at age
14 was teaching a class In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, young ballerinas practice under the instruction of Kenyan one who roars and every-
at his school and told her ballet dancer Joel Kioko, 16, in a room at a school in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. one follows.”q
Associated Press