Alice in Wonderland

by Wyn Evans

Let me start by paying tribute to a local success story, one that hails from and has added to the quality of life in CF23: The Barinowsky School of Ballet (BSB). Yesterday, Sunday 26th March, it seemed that Penylan had moved en masse to Barry; to the Memorial Hall, to be specific. The reason for this exodus was that the BSB was staging two showings of its ballet ‘Alice in Wonderland’, at 1pm and 5pm. I didn’t actually perform a headcount but there must have been seventy or eighty kids there aged from four or five to eighteen plus. The Memo (as the Memorial Hall is now branded) was packed up to and including the very back of the balcony upstairs.

My daughter, The Girl has been a member of the BSB almost her whole life. She has her 17th birthday tomorrow and has been a keen ballerina since she was four or five. The s chool offers its dancers the chance to study for examinations under the aegis of the Royal Academy of Dance and also gives its kids the chance to perform little shows at the end of each term, keeping parents and others in the loop and allowing the kids the opportunity to show their learning. Then, every few years the school has taken over the Memo and put on what can only be called ‘A Production! Capital ‘A’, capital ‘P’’. Add to these events a summer school most years and annual completion of RAD examinations and you will gather just what a committed and creative school the BSB is. I’m tempted to write that it is Penylan’s best kept secret except, of course, that it is no secret: if you’re a parent of a little girl, at the risk of typecasting , you will have discovered the BSB. (I’ve seen some little boys attending too, though it does seem to be more a girl thing.)

Now, regular readers will recall that The Girl has Down Syndrome. All that time ago when The Boss and I were new to parenting and looking around for activities for our girl, we found that Penylan was a wonderful place to bring up a child and over the years it became quite a long list of activities: Waterbabies begat swimming club, Music with Mothers (and dads), baby yoga, Brownies and Guides, athletics at NIAC, Twisters Trampolining, a choir, judo, guitar lessons, and there were many more. Then of course there were clubs and societies aimed at kids with disabilities in general and Down Syndrome in particular. We wanted The Girl to crossover between the mainstream/typically developing and specialist/disability worlds, and for her to be at home in both.

I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t always get it right for her. There were a few bust-ups with mums or dads when what I perceived as non-inclusive behaviour was me being over-sensitive in behalf of my daughter. Equally, there were occasions when kids or parents cancelled The Girl owing to her disability, so learning went both ways. Pretty soon, ballet classes were close to the top of our list of activities. Having Down Syndrome means that motor skills take longer to develop. We wanted to find a dance club that would take this into account.

Then we met Miss Emily and the BSB! From our very first meeting she was life-affirming. She got to know our girl and always sought to concentrate on what could be done rather than what couldn’t. It was evident that she took the measure of all the kids in her care and found in them all, each and every one, something positive. In the jargon, she got to know the kids where they were at and built on their strengths. Obviously, in strict ballet terms, some of the class could do things the Girl could not but space was found for them all to make progress. My daughter’s cohort have worked through the RAD’s graded exams together and this year are studying for Grade 7. Yes, The Girl is studying on her merits for the same Grade 7 as her typically developing peers! There are still things some of them can do that she cannot but the things she can do are manifold and, allied to her deep love of dance, have seen her develop from being one of the chorus in the first Memo production some years ago to becoming one of the soloists in yesterday’s Alice in Wonderland: she was Dormouse, she nailed her solo, and looked very cute indeed.

Another thing I like about the BSB is that Miss Emily paid attention to all her dancers’ strengths. Just as Dormouse got to demonstrate what she could do, some of the other senior girls, sorry – young women, were given the opportunity to demonstrate that they could surely take this dancing malarkey to a professional level in the future.

Oh! I’d intended simply to write a few sentences paying tribute to everyone involved in yesterday’s production. Instead, I seem to have made a column out of it. So be it! Allow me please to thank Misses Emily and Caitlin for giving all the girls the chance to shine. And let me add that Miss Emily is one of the finest teachers I’ve ever come across – in any sphere - and one of the nicest people. To all at the BSB, over many years, thank you!