Teaching ballet in Burma

Ex- Birmingham Royal Ballet dancer Robert Gravenor recently spent a couple of months travelling independently in Burma. The photographs you see here were taken while Gravenor taught ballet to the local children at Phaung Daw Oo School in Mandalay (central Burma). Gravenor says, “this school is run from foreign charity funds and has over 6500 underprivileged students. The funding supply runs out in 2 years time and they are desperate for support.

Most of the children in the photos were orphaned by Cyclone Nargis in 2008. I had 20 students in the class and they all live and study at the school in very basic conditions.

The children had never seen or heard of ballet in their lives.

I hadn’t expected to teach and arrived totally unprepared, so I used an interpreter initially with lots of miming! I was amazed at how enthusiastic and grateful the children were. They have virtually no material possessions, no xboxes etc, yet they are happy. It really was a joy to see! Teaching at PDO was such an incredible, moving experience that I will never forget. The kids loved being introduced to ballet, classical music, creativity and exercise. I really hope to go back to teach again very soon.”

Gravenor has captioned each of the photographs below, and all of the pictures were taken by him, except where he appears in them (those photographs are taken by Isi Dhamma, a teacher at the school and Bethany Mitchell). Gravenor was also assisted by an interpreter, Ei Ei Phyo Lwin, a young teacher and former student at Phaung Daw Oo School.