Palestinian dancer seeks to ‘revolutionise culture’ through ballet

'Teaching ballet and its philosophy is also a way of showing the world that something beautiful comes from Palestine,' said the 24-year-old dance instructor.

Palestinian ballet teacher Shireen Ziyadeh, centre, teaching her young students how to dance ballet. Abbas Momani/ AFP Photo

RAMALLAH, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES // Ramallah dancer Shireen Ziyadeh wants to use pirouettes and plies to change the place where she grew up.

She hopes to train aspiring ballerinas to show that “something beautiful comes from Palestine”.

In tights and a white tunic, her hair scraped back in a flawless bun, the 24-year-old Palestinian repeats instructions to a group of little dancers in pink tutus and slippers at her ballet school in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The idea of teaching ballet to little girls came to the young entrepreneur four years ago.

“I wanted to bring something new and offer them other perspectives on the future,” she said.

But -- as is often the case in the Israeli-occupied West Bank -- the dance classes also have a political dimension.

“Ballet, which is a major art form, is a good way to revolutionise traditional Palestinian culture,” she said. “I’m not only teaching them to dance but also how to integrate with others.”

Ms Ziyadeh’s is not the first ballet school in Ramallah, but she is one of just a handful of teachers across the Palestinian territories.

“Teaching ballet and its philosophy [here] is also a way of showing the world that something beautiful comes from Palestine,” she said.

While ballet is a niche activity in Palestinian culture, traditional folk dance is everywhere.

No marriage or other celebration takes place without the dabkeh -- the Palestinian national dance.

Today, Ms Ziyadeh’s school has 60 pupils despite the challenges she faced when it first opened in May 2011.

Even in Ramallah, the political capital of the West Bank and the territory’s most cosmopolitan city, there was opposition from conservative Palestinians.

Some were suspicious of a school teaching a dance form that involves children and young girls wearing tight clothing.

Others did not like the idea of a young woman starting her own business.

To reassure her neighbours, Ms Ziyadeh left the doors of the school open so that anyone could come in and see what was going on.

And to keep her project a fully Palestinian venture, she also refused offers of foreign funding.

Yasmin Al Sharif had a childhood dream of learning to dance which was never fulfilled. Today, she pays $70 dollars (Dh257) a month so that her daughter can learn.

“I have loved ballet since I was small, but in my day there was no centre like this,” she said.

* Agence France-Presse