A Ballerina from the Kibera neighborhood
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Photographer: Fredrik Lerneryd
“ For the last year or so, documentary photographer Fredrik Lerneryd has been capturing the most amazing portraits of Kenyan ballerinas in the slum Kibera in Nairobi, one of the biggest urban slums on the continent. In an interview by Huffington Post, Lerneryd said, I came in contact with the dancers while I was working on another story and I felt really moved [by] what I saw.” The makeshift studio is simply a classroom where the desks have been moved the sides and the floors have been swept, a testament to the ability to make art live anywhere. Some of the students are so gifted, that they’ve been offered admittance into a boarding school outside of Nairobi, where their talents for dance will be nurtured. The article also mentioned that Lerneryd observed how the growth in confidence of the dancers grew as they mastered movement after movement, and the level of self esteem despite their conditions. And to top it all off, students will be featured at the national theatre in a performance of “The Nutcracker.”
