A Nigerian teenager finds strength through ballet

Fanny Facsar, head of DW’s Lagos Bureau and West Africa correspondent, met an inspiring 18-year-old ballet dancer in Lagos. Here is her story.

by Fanny Facsar, DW correspondent

Shortly before returning to Nigeria on a repatriation flight, I came across a few agency pictures of children dancing ballet in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Lagos. I wanted to know more about the students beyond a few colorful pictures. That’s how I met Olamide Olawale. I have encountered various people in West Africa facing hardship, violence and terror. That is a kind of life which is difficult to imagine, let alone endure—and sometimes hard to cover as a journalist. Olamide’s story was captivating on a different level.

Ballet to keep children out of harm

It is early in the morning when Olamide opens her doors to us—the doors to a 10 square meters apartment, which she shares with her mother and her younger sister. She is about to clean the floor on an empty stomach. Olamide cannot hide her tears as she explains how overwhelming it can be sometell her mother who is struggling to provide for her family. Her mother, an elementary teacher, says she has not received her salary in four months, since schools closed due to the pandemic. “This is my life. I don’t need to fake it. I have faith, if I am disciplined it will change,” says Olamide. Discipline and commitment are what she has learned through ballet, she tells me. She is one of 12 students who receive free ballet classes in Ojo. In this tough neighborhood of Lagos the future looks bleak—especially for the youth. Gangs, crime and prostitution are common ways to make money. Learning how to dance ballet is probably the last thing you would expect to see here.

“This is my life. I don’t need to fake it,” says Olamide Olawale. Here she dances in her neighborhood Ojo in Lagos, Nigeria.

DW/F. Facsar

Daniel Ajala founded the school as a self-taught ballet teacher to give the youth a perspective, keep them off the streets and out of trouble, he explains. Olamide was one of his first students in 2017 and comes to practice twice a week. The very same Olamide I met at home in the morning, in tears, and with a face marked by worries, seemed so different as she was dancing with grace and elegance. “When I come to dance, I forget about everything, dance makes me feel happy and makes me to express my feelings too. Just forget about the past and now I am in the future.”

Putting Nigeria on the international map

Olamide dreams of putting Nigeria on the map for international ballet and opening a shop where she would sell costumes for ballet students. She recently started to learn how to sew. While she does so, she keeps moving her feet. “I always practice ballet. I don’t care what other people think of me because I know what I want for myself.”

For now Olamide performs with her class in the neighborhoods of Ojo, for some people a welcome distraction, others are skeptical. “Due to the religious believes in Nigeria it is seen as indecent for a woman to lift her leg up,” her teacher says. Olamide is poised to continue. She may never dance on big international stages of the world, but ballet gives her strength to overcome the difficulties she faces. When she jumps up from the dirty ground to perform a difficult step, one cannot help but wonder where she gets all her strength from. “Before ballet I was a shy person, now I can express myself and move on”, she says and continues with practice.