Photo: Sebastian Fouquet
In January of 2015 four families, the MacSweens, Plumbes, Dolan/Shaws, and Vaderas came together to establish a new kind of dance school in Nairobi — Dance Centre Kenya. The dance school would offer ballet, tap, jazz, modern, musical theater and contemporary to people of all ages. The centre which now has two schools in Karen (The Hardy Post) and Lavington (The Lavington Mall) is committed to nurturing young talent from different backgrounds.On a warm September evening in Nairobi, our photojournalist Teddy Muraya visited the Karen school to join in on a class by professional American ballerina Cooper Rust. His fly-on-the-wall photo essay captures the grit, poise and elegance that goes into their ballet classes.
Cooper Rust (left) coaches her students on correct cambré and port de bras technique.
The dance school has been fairly successful in their quest to bring ballet into the Kenyan mainstream. Their biggest challenge is that around this part of the world, ballet still has a reputation for being a purely female thing, confined to the social upper-classes. For a long time, a majority of the enrolled students came from the expat community. To counter this, the school actively reached out to native Kenyans with the aim of increasing the number of locals enrolling. Now, the school is at an almost 50:50 enrollment balance.
Lawrence was first introduced to ballet when his church added it as one of their youth activities.
Ballet slippers are not your "everyday" pair of shoes. They are super-lightweight, flexible and specially designed with soft lining so as to afford the dancer a safe landing. Safety always comes first. Talking to Lawrence later after a class training session, he explains that the finding the perfect fit of slippers locally is virtually impossible. They, along with the proper ballet attire, have to be sourced from overseas, which comes at a dear price. The school has however been very resourceful in assisting the students get them.
All dancers typically wear ballet slippers at the beginning of a ballet class, whereas female dancers may change into pointe shoes for centre work and performance. 
