THROUGH BALLET, GABRIEL ANORUO EXPRESSES HIS CORPS ASPIRATIONS DANCE

Okechukwu Uwaezuoke

There is indeed something so self-assured about Gabriel Oghenekevwe Anoruo’s posture. Take his ports de bras, for instance. They proclaim his undying passion for ballet. Then, there are his spectacular arabesques, which attest to his great potentials. For this gangling chocolate-complexioned 16-year-old, who towers above everyone else at the Leap of Dance Academy – he measures 6’ 7”, he says – these are only the beginnings of his aspirations to greater heights.

Leap of Dance Academy? It is a dance academy founded on September 9, 2017, by a Lagos State University graduate Daniel Owoseni Ajala in the less-privileged Lagos suburban community Ajangbadi. Yes, it is the same academy, which became world-famous after a video of one of its students, Anthony Mmesoma Madu, went viral on social media.

Gabriel had discovered ballet as a 6-year-old. This was while he was watching the 2013 animated fantasy movie Barbie in the Pink Shoes with a female cousin. For him, the movie became more exhilarating when Barbie began to dance en pointe.

“I loved the movie,” he gushes. By extension, this implies that he fell in love with ballet.
Hence, as he grew older, he was often drawn to his school’s ballet group, which was almost exclusively an all-girls group. This elicited taunts from his male schoolmates, who labelled him effeminate on account of his interest in the dance form. Of course, even as a 13-year-old in Senior Secondary 1 class, his feelings were hurt by the misconceptions of his schoolmates. “I felt sad,” he reminisces. “But I told myself that if God has given me this talent, I can’t let it go to waste.”

So, he continued to practise nonetheless, honing his skills through the tutorials he was following on YouTube. But then, it took a broken right leg while he was roller-skating on Sunday, January 19, 2020, to force him to take a break from ballet. “I celebrated my birthday on March 26 on a broken leg, healed sometime in May and practically stopped ballet.”

Not for long, though. Stumbling upon a photograph of a student of the Port Harcourt-based True Gold Dance Academy reawakened his interest in the dance form. He resumed practice again and soon began posting his photographs on Facebook. These photographs, which showed him in different ballet poses, soon caught the attention of his dad, who thought that they were too good to be allowed to waste.

“He asked me to look for a dance school. This was how I found the Leap of Dance Academy and my journey is yet to unfold.”
Through a Google search, he had found the Leap of Dance Academy’s Facebook page and informed his dad, who called the phone number displayed on the page and arranged for a visit.

Thus, on Saturday, August 29, 2020, Gabriel resumed at the Leap of Dance Academy and has since then been attending its dance classes on Friday and Saturday. At the academy, he easily made friends and soon found himself making two students of the academy his confidants. As for the academy’s director, Ajala, he holds him in very high esteem.

Curiously, the Gam International School, Lagos Senior Secondary 3 student is intent on becoming an accountant like his parents Shadrach and Patricia Anoruo, who work at Himaj Logistics which consults for the telecommunications giant Glo and J. O. Adidi and co, respectively.

Nonetheless, he wants his two younger siblings – the boy Marvellous, who is not yet 9 years old and the girl, Heritage, who will soon turn 3 – to “follow their dreams, no matter what happens”.
For even as he is still being stigmatised by his peers for his unconventional passion, Gabriel remains resolute and often maintains a sunny disposition while silently waging his inner battles. “They still criticise me but I don’t care anymore,” he says.

Perhaps, it helps that he remains open-minded and tries “to understand other people’s views.”
Like most other teenagers, his musical tastes revolve around hip hop and Gospel. Still, he cannot help being fascinated by the less popular jazz and classical music.
Meanwhile, he hopes his passion for ballet would propel him to greater heights with the support of his parents. No, he does not see his becoming an accountant as being an obstacle. Nor does he consider being married and raising a family.

Besides dancing, watching Disney movies acted by humans and animated movies are among Gabriel’s other favourite pastimes. He also enjoys cooking, baking pastries, making decorations and surprising people with gifts. “I learnt [how to cook] very well from my mum having been my parents’ only child for about eight years,” he explains.