By Olena Krylova
Young professional dancers from Ukraine have opened a studio where three-year-olds take their first ballet steps — and where their teachers are rebuilding careers of their own.
Veronika trained as a ballet dancer in Ukraine. Today she stands in a rehearsal room in Basel, counting out a plié for a row of children, the youngest of them three years old. Many of them arrived in Switzerland the same way she did — with a suitcase and without a plan.
“We see changes in the children after a few months of classes. Also their parents report about verious improvements: posture, focus, confidence, friendships”, – says Veronika.
The studio is run by three Ukrainain dancers and is easy to join. No audition, no prior training, no expensive equipment for the first lessons, and instruction that works across Ukrainian and German. For families living in temporary housing on tight budgets, that low threshold is the difference between a child who dances and a child who watches.
The programme is built around three strands. Ballet for children from age three introduces classical dance from the very first steps: coordination, grace and discipline grow lesson by lesson, and with them an early sense of belonging to an art form. High Heels, a dance style for women, combines expressiveness with technique — participants describe leaving the class with a confidence in their movement that carries into the rest of the week. Yoga classes for women work on flexibility, balance and inner steadiness: an hour in which energy returns and the pace of a demanding everyday life slows down.
For children who have changed countries, schools and languages within a year, a dance class is more than movement. It is a room where the rules are the same as at home — first position is first position in any language — and where progress is visible in the mirror every week. Regular classes give structure, the group gives friendships, and the stage gives something many of these children have not had in a long time: an occasion to be applauded.
The studio operates on the USB platfrom. For Veronika and her colleagues, teaching is not a pause in a professional biography. It is the next chapter of one: choreographing, building a repertoire, leading an ensemble, and doing it on their own terms.
