He got his first taste of finance while at university when he started reading books on personal wealth management. My parents were creative people but they also saw advantages in having a mainstream job,’ said Ng. He always knew he wanted a ‘mainstream career’ after seeing the relentless hard work his parents put in to make money for the family. Moving to another beatĭespite his passion for ballet, the decision to trade his leotard for a suit came naturally. He also performed at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010. He was accepted by the Singapore Management University (SMU) through ‘discretionary admissions’, a path which makes exceptions for talented students outside of the normal academic route.Īt SMU, where he studied information systems management, he represented the university in contemporary dance performances, student exchanges, as well as a solo ballet competition in Perth. He took a break from dancing during his national service days but resumed when he started university. To lend a West African sway to the conventional ballet moves, Owenseni sets his choreography to Nigerian music, often drawing on the hypnotic rhythms of the famed masked Afrobeat artist known as Lágbájá.He got into junior college in Singapore through ‘direct school admission’, a programme that recognises students’ potential beyond their academic performance, by virtue of his ballet background.
#BALLET LEAP FREE#
“For me, it’s about creating a Nigerian identity around the trappings of traditional ballet,” says Owoseni, who is able to offer free costumes in addition to free tuition thanks to donations from organizations like Traveling Tutu, a non-profit organization out of Florida. In another, they’re decked out in the distinctive green and white colors of the Nigerian flag. In one image, a troupe of young female dancers is pictured mid curtsy with red and gold wax print skirts layered over their white tutus, traditional colorful Jigida beads slung over their leotards, and matching head ties or geles.
The costumes are just as attention-grabbing. Though the students have mostly been practicing outdoors every day since the pandemic hit West Africa, glimpses of the studio, which is decorated with charming baby pink and blue fabric, pepper the academy’s Instagram. “I had a picture in my head of what I wanted the dancers and my school to look like,” says Owoseni, who started teaching out of his home before a local businesswoman offered him a free space where he now holds weekly sessions. It was at that point that Owoseni decided he would take matters into his own hands and fulfill his dream of opening a ballet school in his hometown for kids like himself who couldn’t afford the luxury of ballet classes. It just seemed like blatant discrimination,” says Owoseni who applied to several schools across Eastern and Southern Europe, including one in Zagreb, Croatia. “I was basically told that as an African I was not eligible for an international scholarship. And yet his hopes for an international career were quickly dashed. A decade later, and Owoseni was good enough to hold his own with the best in the country, and began freelancing as a teacher in Lagos. “I basically learned all the fundamental principles of ballet through YouTube tutorials,” says the 29-year-old dance instructor speaking from his home in Badagry. With no access to the handful of ballet schools that exist in Lagos’s exclusive suburbs, Owoseni decided to teach himself after watching Save the Last Dance at the age of 13. He founded the ballet school a little over three years ago and has a story that’s the stuff of Internet-age fairytales, too. Madu is one of a dozen students between the ages of 5 and 12 at Daniel Owoseni’s Leap Academy of Dance in Badagry, an unassuming coastal town about six hours from the center of Lagos, Nigeria’s sprawling metropolis. We create, soar, can imagine, have unleashed passion and love… despite the brutal obstacles that have been put in front of us! Our people can fly!” As Viola Davis put it in a caption on Twitter, it was a reminder of “the beauty of my people.
In a moment when our social media channels have been flooded with unsettling news, the vision of the 11-year-old pirouetting over puddles is especially uplifting. Since it was uploaded to Instagram in June, the video of Nigerian ballet dancer Anthony Mmesoma Madu dancing in the rain has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times over.
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