English National Ballet star Isabelle Brouwers: It’s really touching to see the joy ballet can bring to African orphans

The ENB star ballerina tells how dance is helping children in one of kenya’s worst slums

English National Ballet star Isabelle Brouwers says she experienced the “true joy” her art can bring during a visit to a school for orphaned children in “the biggest slum in Africa”.

The 21-year-old taught ballet to the children at Spurgeons Academy in the Kiberia slum in Nairobi, Kenya, which is home to 1.5 million people who live in an area of one square mile. The school educates over 400 orphaned and HIV-positive children, tries to find them adoptive families and provides them with support. Every Wednesday, pupils do extra-curricular activities, with one option being ballet.

Brouwers, who lives in London but was born in Bonn, Germany, visited the school twice in January and February — teaching ballet on dirt floors. The star, who has danced in Swan Lake and The Nutcracker with The Royal Ballet and is preparing for a role at Sadler’s Wells with the ENB, spoke of the “huge power” dance had on the children’s lives.

She told the Standard: “It really touched me personally that even in such desperate and desolate conditions ballet can bring so much true joy. It amazed me that the simple act of dancing could bring so much happiness. It was so touching to see. See them dancing with big smiles on their faces and being so happy, it made me truly understand the huge power of my art form.”

“Huge power”: Isabelle Brouwers teaches dance at Spurgeons Academy in the Kiberia slum in Nairobi 
Nigel Norrington

Brouwers found out about the school, which is funded by UK charities GlobalCare and The CRED Foundation, after seeing a video about it online. She said: “The Spurgeons Academy is an incredible school in the most densely populated slum in Africa which gives children the chance to be taken in by a foster family and most importantly an education which nurtures the students academically and creatively. Every Wednesday they do extra-curricular activities with the children as they don’t want them to have just a basic bread-and-butter education.

“The children’s joy of dance was evident in the video, but it was heart-wrenching to see them having to train in such desperate conditions. It made me realise how fortunate I was to grow up with all the resources to make my dream of becoming a dancer a reality.”

With the backing of ENB’s Artistic Director Tamara Rojo, who helped her gather “an incredible amount of dancewear and shoe donations”, Brouwers travelled to the slum.

She is planning to return to the school in the future, adding: “I don’t get much holiday but as soon as I do, I will.”

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