Lucy Mwai, one the few Kenyan professional ballerinas

Her father, a well-travelled man of his time and a lover of classical music had just returned from London, along with his overseas friends.
Like any other time, her old folk dusted his precious vintage kinanda and as he settled down for a bender with his guests, the record player blasted a Ludwig Van Beethoven from the vinyl.
“Beethoven music remains one of my favourite classical repertoires thanks to my father’s influence. When they played the record, subconsciously and for whatever reason that I don’t know, I twirled and one of my father’s buddies said, ‘Do that again?’ which I did and he said, ‘You would make a very good ballet dancer’. I think I was four turning five then,” Lucy Mwai vividly recalls.
Those were the good old days when ballet was unheard of in Kenya but remains one of the most important memories to Ms Mwai, currently among the few certified ‘black’ ballet instructors in the country.
That simple twirl moves as a colleen, which she now calls pirouette -according to ballet doctrines-saw Ms Mwai embark on a journey of a lifetime to become this modish ballerina she is now.

“From that little performance, I have been dancing ballet pretty much the entire of my life. This is what I do for a living. It took me eight years to get certified with my training in London and South Africa where I perfected this craft,” Ms Mwai says.
She has spent the last 13 years teaching ballet in Kenya with her main interest being children between the age of two and a half years to 15. 
She teaches adults too.
“Ballet involves a lot of muscles and bones. It makes you perform unconventional moves. This is why it’s good to start much earlier and that is why I go after the children. Ballet is all about muscle memory, because of the technical techniques it encompasses which require one to do it over and over again,” Ms Mwai says.
One thing you cannot help but notice about Ms Mwai is her dedication and passion for ballet. For the entire part of this conversation, she stands in a rather odd position with her hips on an outward rotation, the heels kissing and toes facing outwards forcing the feet to form a V shape. It’s the first of the five basic standing positions in ballet.
But Ms Mwai is not static at her glassy studio located in Chez Mahmadi in Kitisuru, Nairobi. She does not stand in a spot for long, she prefers to do the explaining by moving.
I lost count of the number of times she floated around the studio to a classical while on her tippy toes or when she tried to execute a grand Jete move but could not because of an injury she is nursing and so she ‘melted’ a move called fondu.

Alien moves

“In ballet there is a way we place our chins and backs, basically from toe to head everything is determined. I say ballet is one of those positions where you can stand for two minutes and you begin to sweat because you are engaging the entire body,” she says.
In other words, Ms Mwai explains that, whereas ballet is meant for stage performance, it’s an entire fitness regime in itself as it pushes the body to execute alien moves.

“Right now I’m standing in the fifth position. The front is completely turned out, my toes to the heels are grounded, my knees are pulled up, my quads are engaged, glutes are wrapped over and under. My back muscles are pulled up, core engaged and rounded, my chin is lifted, my shoulders relaxed and away from my ears.”
Gazing at the executions, one sees why ballet is considered a form of high art, certainly going beyond an average dance class.
“With ballet, you are trying to demonstrate elegance, that's why it’s always about building a type of body profile,” says Ms Mwai.
With its origins in the French court and Russian concert venues, it is one of the most difficult dance styles to master, compounded with complex vocabulary, mostly in French.
“From the sound of it, its character development, discipline, resilience, in their grit, etiquette and passion. You cannot do ballet without embracing these characteristics.”
To be a perfectionist like Ms Mwai is, one has to do the same moves repetitively and over a long period.
"With that, the memorisation (of the moves) moves from your brain to the muscles. This is what we call muscle memory. When you teach your muscle a specific movement, its coordination is throughout the entire body because one part of the body, unless it’s in isolated movement, does not work alone. Though the other parts of the body are not moving they are still working but in a static movement. An example is the Port de Bras. Here everything is working including the legs but you will only see the arms moving,” Ms Mwai says.

Besides working the entire body frame and finessing one to a great performer, Ms Mwai notes that one will also benefit from improved flexibility as it involves stretching many major and minor muscle groups
Through increased stretching using body weight, muscles become longer, stronger and more resistant to tearing or strain.
As for improved muscle toning, this comes about with the engagement of several body muscles in performance, which in ballet involves a lot of dance to balance, stretch, spring and jump.
Each move strengthens and shapes the muscles, this reshaping of the muscle is the toning.

Overcoming racism/colourism

Perhaps what sometimes attempts to water down Ms Mwai’s zeal and passion for ballet is nothing of her own doing.
She says her rich dark melanin has seen her discriminated against and even rogued out of gigs merely because she is a black ballerina.

“It surely sounds unbelievable that you can have a Kenyan trained to teach ballet because it’s not a local art which is true. Many foreigners when they hear you are Kenyan turn away, they don’t give you a chance. Some even go ahead and ask if I’m black,” she says.
An incident that once broke her heart was when a few of her students racially insulted her.
“Over time I have grown thick skin; I no longer feel bad but pity such people because it is not on me but on them. I feel sorry for them for their ignorance. When you discriminate against someone based on their skin colour I should feel sorry for you because you are depriving yourself of the possibility of a beautiful diversified lifestyle. I moved away from being angry to pitying them.”
Unbelievably Ms Mwai says she has also encountered discrimination from fellow Kenyans who don’t believe she makes a good ballet teacher.
“We have Kenyans who are very racist. A good number have denied me an opportunity to teach their children just because I am black, quite an irony. I mean I have been denied a school gig in Kenya not because of what I bring to the table but because my skin is black. I later learned a white instructor was hired for the job. But I rarely focus on this anymore although it’s the reality we live in. My mission and dream is to teach as many children as I can get hold of,” she says.

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