TUESDAY 26 AUGUST 2014 • [email protected] • www.thepeninsulaqatar.com • 4455 7741 Guardians inside returns to reclaim CAMPUS • Carnegie Mellon Qatar welcomes box office win Class of 2018 from Turtles P | 5 P | 8-9 RECIPE CONTEST • Send in your best recipe and win a dinner voucher for two P | 6 BALLET FOR WHEELS • Mercedes’s AMG swaddles with safety BETTER FUTURE in luxury’s lap Girls from a rough neighbourhood known as a P | 7 “cracolandia,” or crackland, are learning the graceful art of ballet courtesy of a local group that also offers them food, counselling and HEALTH studies. • Delay morning school start for teens: Paediatricians P | 11 TECHNOLOGY • Protect your email the German way P | 12 LEARN ARABIC • Learn commonly used Arabic words and their meanings P | 13 2 PLUS | TUESDAY 26 AUGUST 2014 COVER STORY Girls from Brazil’s favelas find escape in ballet By Adriana Gomez Licon The time spent focused on grace and control is far removed from the girls’ daily lives. Many ast the graffiti-covered overpass and are being raised by parents who are recovering subway tracks, in a slum penned in from or are addicted to drugs. Some girls live by high-rises, 8-year-old Gabriela with relatives who are dealers, or they have been PAparecida fixes her curly hair into a abandoned and taken in by neighbours. Some bun as she waits for a ride to her new favour- have experienced violence. ite activity: ballet. Peeling back the tarp over Girls growing up in favelas are more likely the doorway, the skinny girl reaches out into to become pregnant as teens, and the last 2010 the dirt alleyway to hug the church volunteer census found the rate of illiteracy was twice as arriving to take her to dance class. high in the slums than in other areas of Brazil. Growing up amid drug dealers and addicts, “We see all kinds of stories here. From girls Gabriela has yet to learn how to read. Yet she who haven’t showered in days, who don’t know and other girls from a rough neighbourhood how to brush their teeth, who are locked inside known as a “cracolandia,” or crackland, are their homes all day,” said Machado, instructor learning the graceful art courtesy of a local and head of the project. “I feel always respon- church group that also offers them food, coun- sible for their lives, always worried about what selling and Bible studies. The class is among may happen.” several groups where young dancers hope to Machado just opened the studio named catch the eye of a respected Brazilian ballerina “House of Dreams” in the neighbourhood, relo- who recruits dozens of disadvantaged girls for cating the class from a more commercial area of an annual workshop. Sao Paulo. Machado herself was raised by a drug Twice a week, more than 20 girls, ages 5 addict, who later recovered, in the northeastern through 12, board a Volkswagen van for a state of Bahia. 10-minute ride to class, where they put on pink Ballet dancer Priscilla Yokoi, whose perform- or black tights and ballet shoes donated by a ances have taken her to 15 countries including dancewear store. the United States, recently visited and chose On a recent day, instructor Joana Machado five of the girls for the annual workshop. It played a jaunty tune of flutes and piano. Sitting allows 150 disadvantaged children to take four on the floor, the girls formed a circle with their days of classes with foreign ballerinas and per- legs out in front of them and knees straight. form a show in October. They flexed their feet and then stretched their The school Gabriela attends doesn’t accept toes down toward the floor, over and over again boys, but some of the other groups that Yokoi while Machado corrected the younger ones’ form. visits do. PLUS | TUESDAY 26 AUGUST 2014 3 Yokoi recently travelled to another slum in Sao Paulo where an audition at a basketball court attracted about 40 dancers and dozens of onlookers from the neighbourhood. Some of the girls who took up dancing at a local studio sat on the cold concrete while Yokoi looked for the prettiest pointed feet. At the workshop in Paulinia, a city north of Sao Paulo, Yokoi brings dance scouts from the only school the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet operates outside of Russia. Yokoi said she wanted to expand on efforts like the Bolshoi school, which opened in 2000 in the southern Brazilian city of Joinville and accepts only a handful of students each year. “The way I see ballet in these forgotten areas is that it brings children hope. They audition, they participate in a workshop and they are more motivated,” Yokoi said. “I see my project as a window into what ballet can become in Brazil if we find talent within these communities.” Russians largely introduced classical ballet to Brazil in the 1920s, when dancers began immigrating and established dance companies in cities like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The Bolshoi school in Brazil has given birth to a new generation of Brazilian ballet dancers, such as Deise Mendonca, who performs with the State Street Ballet company in Santa Barbara, California. Earlier this year, she brought tears to the eyes of judges on the Fox television show “So You Think You Can Dance.” Mendonca’s father was a mail carrier and her mother unemployed when the family moved to Joinville so she could join the Bolshoi school as a schol- arship student. “We struggled. We had no money,” Mendonca said. “But it changes your mindset. Many doors open for future opportunities.” Back in the “crackland” studio, some of the girls make faces and giggle at their reflections in the large mirror next to the barre. The barre work requires more concentration, instructor Machado tells them as they bend their knees into what is known in ballet parlance as a grand plie. Keep your chin and chest lifted, but not too much, she tells them. Keep your back firm, not arched. “You think it is easy. It looks easy. It’s not, and it hurts,” Machado tells three sisters who joined the group earlier this year. After class, the girls get in the van to return home. At the last stop, 8-year- old Sandra Alves doesn’t want to get off and she hides her face in her knees. “Just pretend I am not here.” But eventually, she has to go. “It’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare,” she sings A volunteer walks ballet student as she glides side to side and disappears into the gritty dark hallway. AP Maria home after her class at The House of Dreams dance studio. 4 PLUS | TUESDAY 26 AUGUST 2014 CAMPUS / COMMUNITY NU-Q welcomes largest class to date orthwestern University in In the presence of their families, With an emphasis on better Union President, who said; “For this Qatar welcomed its largest friends, alumni and members of understanding Qatar, the convoca- year’s student class, the most impor- class to date at a colourful NU-Q staff, the Class of 2018 was tion address was given by author and tant thing to understand is their expe- Nceremony at the Opera House welcomed by NU-Q Dean and CEO Professor Dr Mehran Kamrava, direc- rience at NU-Q will be unique, with at Katara Cultural Village on Sunday. Dr Everette E Dennis, who praised tor of the Center for International opportunities to broaden their horizons With the administration and staff in Qatar’s Vision 2030 for recogniz- and Regional Studies at Georgetown and meet new people, but that doesn’t full academic regalia, 65 new freshmen ing the “importance of communica- University in Qatar whose book Qatar: come easy and it will take hard work. students were inducted into the school. tion, journalism and media studies,” Small State, Big Politics has received Ready access to education is something This also includes the largest number of which is the university’s mandate. He critical acclaim. to be treasured, and I have every con- Qataris as the school begins its 7th year. noted that the evening’s celebration He advised the Class of 2018 to fidence the Class of 2018 will excel on The ceremony, which heralded in the of “learning and the advancement of “stand their ground and pursue their this exciting path, embracing the chal- start of the school year, is the culmina- knowledge, comes at a troubled time future vision with singular determina- lenges ahead in order to go on and do tion of NU-Q’s Wildcat Welcome Week in this region and in other points tion.” Students shouldn’t be “afraid of remarkable things.” - an orientation program for incoming of conflict on the globe,” but argued failure as this journey is about learning, Students in NU-Q’s Class of 2018 students to learn about academic and that such recent and longstanding exchanging ideas and having a dialogue hail from 20 different countries and community expectations, forge friend- problems “benefit from the virtues with students and members of a dis- 5 continents across the globe, with ships and meet the mentors who will of education, as well as free and open tinct global intellectual elite.” the majority speaking at least two serve as critical resources through the discourse with respect and tolerance The convocation was also addressed languages. next four years. for others. ” by Marium Saeed, NU-Q’s Student The Peninsula ‘Orange is the New Black’ set to premiere on Go by OSN eason 1 of the critically acclaimed Orange is the This super hit Netflix series has been nominated SNew Black is set to mark its exclusive premiere for a string of awards including the People’s Choice on ‘GO by OSN’, online TV service, on September 1.