By
Margaretta wa gacheru (posted 18 November 2018)
Ballet is a
form of dance that has been in Kenya since the 1950s, ever since Madame
Zerowitz began teaching at the former British Council complex which is now the
Kenya Cultural Centre.
But ballet
had never been taken and taught all over Kenya before. Yet that’s what’s been
happening ever since the Dance Centre Kenya started teaching kids from Kibera
and Kuinda as well as from Karen and Muthaiga.
DCK started
doing it around five years ago. It got underway soon after the American prima
ballerina Cooper Rust got together with three pairs of interested parents and
officially opened the Centre in 2013 at a temporary site at the Karen Surgery.
Stella Essing and Lawrence Ogira in rehearsal for The Nutcracker
Since then,
DCK has grown by leaps and bounds. With Cooper serving as its Artistic
Director, DCK first shifted to a spacious place in Hardy. Then, it opened a
second site inside the Lavington Mall, and just recently, a third branch was
opened at the new Rosslyn Riviera mall.
But that’s
only a fraction of what DCK does. In addition to staging its annual ballet,
Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovshy’s ‘The Nutcracker’, which opens December 1st
at Kenya National Theatre and runs over two weekends, first at KNT, then at
GEMS Cambridge Auditorium December 8th and then at ISK December 9th.
DCK also teaches dance in more than a dozen Nairobi schools plus it opened up another
branch at the Sure 24 Orphanage in Nakuru.
But DCK’s assistant
director’s Caroline Slot Wamaya explains that it’s not only ballet that is
taught at these scholarship sites. “At Karen C [in Kuinda] and at the Orphanage, the children
are encouraged to choose between learning either African dance, contemporary dance
or ballet. They also have the option of doing visual art or theatre,” Caroline
adds.
At both of
those sites, children are taught for free, courtesy of the NGO, Artists for
Africa which Cooper started over seven years ago to help provide scholarships
for talented youth who are nonetheless disadvantaged socially and financially.
A number of scholarship
students will perform this coming Sunday at 3pm at the Karen C School in Kuinda
which is just adjacent to Karen. Their performance will be complimented by DCK
ballet students dancing in Act 2 of ‘The Nutcracker’. That includes Lawrence
Ogira, 22 who was on scholarship his first year at DCK but having been a professional
dancer before coming to the Centre, he now assists with teaching and is on his
way, with AFA’s support, to study engineering and dance at the University of
South Carolina.
Opening
night of the full ballet will special indeed. For not only will Cooper dance
for one performance only, playing the Snow Queen, (Thereafter, the part will be
danced by Stella Essing with Lawrence Ogira as her partner). But the ballet
will for the first time be accompanied by a live orchestra rather than recorded
music.
The Nairobi
Philharmonic Orchestra is an offshoot Nairobi Orchestra and will be led by the guest
conductor, Jonathan Rush who will also lead the Ghetto Classics Children’s
Choir from Korogocho.
The other
guest performer in this year’s balletis Baris Erhan of the Turkish State
Orchestra and Ballet.
This will be
the fourth year that DCK has staged The Nutcracker, but as I have seen all
three of the previous performances, I am looking forward to this one for
several reasons. For one, Tchaikovsky’s music is beautiful. For another, Cooper
always re-choreographs the ballet every year to keep it fresh and inspired to
fit the new crop of dancers. And three, there are always seasoned dancers mixed
in with the new rising stars who Cooper trains as does Caroline and several
other first class Kenyan teachers, all of whom have been trained by the
artistic director herself.
Five of the
younger dancers who are in this year’s Nutcracker are children that Cooper is
not only teaching to dance but also mentoring while they stay in her home.
Among the five is 12 year old Lavinder Orisa Thuku is has the leading role this
year of Clara, the little girl who’s given a nutcracker doll that comes alive
in her dreams and leads her into a beautiful fantasy world that is the essence
of the ballet.
Cooper has
mentored and home schooled several children since she opened DCK. Most
remarkably is Joel Kioko who came from Kuinda and through sheer hard work,
dedication, natural talent and Cooper’s care has led to his currently being a
student in London at the National Ballet School of UK. 693
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