Last year I spent two days at a women’s conference in Jinja. In one session they had a panel of long-term missionaries from the area and interviewed them about what inspired them to go into the mission field and how God worked in their lives once they were here. One woman’s story was my favorite:
Interviewer: What made you decide to be a missionary?
Missionary: Well, when I was younger I loved ballet, and I also loved God. I wanted to do both with my life. So I told people I was going to be a missionary ballerina and travel the world dancing and telling people about God. Of course, it wasn’t until later that I learned a missionary ballerina isn’t really a thing…
When she said that, I leaned over to my friend and excitedly whispered, “I spend a lot of my time teaching kids at Noah’s Ark ballet—I’m a missionary ballerina!”
Then and there, I unofficially made that my new title. Katie Berkman: Missionary Ballerina.
When I was six years old, I wanted to start taking ballet lessons. I don’t remember how it came up or what inspired me to ask for it, but through one way or another my first grade Christmas present was to start taking ballet and tap lessons at Jan’s School of Dance in Morton. It wasn’t a big studio—in face, Jan had converted her basement into a dance studio by putting in a vinyl floor and covering three walls with mirrors and a bar—but it was enough for the small classes she taught.
The other girls had started practicing in September, so I was the latecomer. At the beginning of my first lesson, Jan told my mom I could join, but whether or not I performed in the recital at the end of the year would depend on how well I could catch up with the last few months of lessons. At the end of the first lesson, she said I could be in the recital.
For the next nine years, once or twice a week I spent the afternoon in Jan’s basement learning demi pliés and chassés and tourjetés and a host of other things I can’t spell. By the time I reached junior high, most other girls had stopped dancing in favor of sports or free time, so by comparison I was one of the advanced students. I started coming to a younger class as Jan’s assistant teacher, correcting the girls and helping Jan keep order in exchange for a lower rate on my own lessons.
I spent a year doing special ankle exercises so my feet and ankles would be strong enough to dance on pointe. Jan traced my feet and took measurements to get just the right shoes, and when my wooden-toed slippers finally came, I was ecstatic. For a few years, I woke up at five in the morning while the rest of the family was still sleeping, tied the ribbons on my shoes, swept all the dirt in the kitchen under the rug (except on Fridays, when I swept all the dirt from under the rug into a dustpan and finally threw it out), used the kitchen counter as a barre and did my stretches and exercises. Only one time did I fall and break a cabinet door. I didn’t wear flip flops to school for years because my toes were always ugly and bloody and bandaged from those beautiful, painful shoes. I won’t lie, I was proud.
When I was fourteen, after my freshman year of high school, Jan retired. Since hers was the only dance studio in Morton, if I wanted to continue lessons I would have to drive an hour to and from another studio, which meant quitting volleyball and softball to make time for that. I loved ballet, but not enough to give up sports for it. So at the age of fourteen, I also retired from ballet.
Or so I thought.
When I moved to Uganda ten years later and someone asked me to choreograph and teach a ballet dance for our Christmas cantata, of course I said yes. I still loved dancing; I just didn’t do it much anymore. I had ten dancers who I remember as teenagers, only now—five years later—they actually are teenagers, so they must have been pretty young in that first dance. We practiced in a small concrete-floor hut near the children’s home and performed in the cantata that Christmas.
In the five years since then I have choreographed a ballet every Christmas for anywhere between two and twelve dancers. And from there it grew. I have included ballet lessons as part of the children’s holiday program, where I have had a class of 25 6-year-olds that I am happy to say was not as chaotic as it sounds. I taught ballet to a class of four-year-olds in the nursery school and have had a few groups of teenagers in between.
I quickly realized that knowing how to dance does not necessarily mean I know how to teach dancing. Thank God for the internet. I made a lot of adjustments depending on the size and age of the group I was teaching, which can be summed up in an observation I made last Christmas:
Teaching ballet to 14-year-olds: "Point front, point side, passé, first position. Pas de bourré, pas de bourrée, arabesque, relevé.”
Teaching ballet to 4-year-olds: "Point front, point side, tree! Catch your stars--one, two, three, four--and put them down. Rainbow arms! Open, close. Open, close. Airplane right, airplane left, catch your ball!"
Last year when I was choreographing a dance for four teenage girls, for inspiration I took them to a Uganda National Contemporary Ballet performance in Kampala. It wasn’t long before I realized the word “contemporary” in the name is much more prevalent than the word “ballet,” but we enjoyed seeing different styles of dance and even used some of the moves we saw in the dance we were learning at the time. The girls’ favorite part was when the whole audience was welcomed onstage at the end to eat cake and talk with the dancers. I don’t think they talked with a single person, but they did spend half an hour dancing around the big stage in front of a real auditorium. Seeing them love dance makes my heart smile.
About two years ago I also started teaching Stomp. What is stomp, you ask? Well, it is step dancing, only I thought it was called stomp and no one here knows what it is anyway so I have gotten away with the mistake for years. Maybe they will never find out. While stomp on its own was fun, I discovered that mixing stomp and ballet in one dance is better. There is something about finding a song where we can bring out both the gracefulness of the music and the heavy beat that I find fun.
But fun is not enough. Pretty good ballet is not enough. Even perfect ballet is not enough. How is this ministry? I have struggled with that question a lot as I have taught more and more dances, more and more groups, on more and more occasions. If I want to call myself a missionary ballerina, surely the missionary part of that needs to encompass more than just living here. Doesn’t it?
It is a slow process, but I am learning.
When I choreographed for recent cantatas, the dancers and I talked about what it means to be onstage. The cantatas are a form of evangelism where we perform the Christmas story and share the gospel message through music, dance and drama. I told the dancers that if they are representing Jesus onstage, they had better represent Jesus offstage as well. It opened up the door to address issues of disrespect, disobedience, and dishonesty, to name a few, and what it looks like to represent Jesus to the people around us in our everyday lives.
A few months ago I taught my first solo dance to one of the teenagers, Tamar. Those were some of my favorite rehearsal times ever because we could actually get personal about what we were doing. While we stretched, I had her listen to the song and we talked about what the meaning was. Since the song was about remembering God’s faithfulness and all He has done for us, we shared stories of how He has been faithful in our own lives. Before we began to dance each lesson, we sat on the floor with our legs extended in front of us, the soles of our feet pressed against each other, and we reached down and held each other’s hands and stretched and prayed. We thanked God for His faithfulness and for our bodies that are able to dance. We prayed that we would always remember what He has done and is doing in our lives. We prayed that the people in church who would see Tamar present this dance would listen to the words and be touched by them. We dedicated the dance to God as our worship, over and over. And it was. And it was beautiful.
Often a dance is born in my head when I am listening to a song. A move or two pop into my mind, then a few more, then larger pieces of choreography and what can make it unique from the other dances I have taught. Before long I am listening to the song on repeat (I have an incredibly patient husband), half-dancing around our tiny kitchen and frantically typing up the choreography before I forget it. The only way to get the dance out of my head is to have people perform it; it never goes away on its own.
The most recent dance to take root in my mind was another ballet-stomp. I thought I was ambitious in wanting to find 18 dancers to fill the places in my head, so I made a general announcement to all the teenagers in church… and got more than 40 takers. This has been quite the exhilarating learning experience. I knew we only had time for five lessons before we needed to present, but these dancers have shown an attention and enthusiasm that I definitely couldn’t find in the six-year-olds and I am so proud of them, not necessarily because of their dancing abilities, but because of their commitment and effort. They not only show up on time to lessons, but many of them come early! It is a whole new experience for me.
During our first lesson, I gave them all a worksheet to take home. On one side were printed the lyrics to the song, and on the other side were a few questions about the meaning of the song and how it applies to their lives. I told them the paper was their ticket to get into practice the next week, and they took it seriously. At the beginning of practice when we stretch, the teenagers share their testimonies with the rest of the group. We get to hear from one another how God has set us free from different burdens and chains in our lives and be encouraged by the work of the Holy Spirit all around us. Some take this part more seriously than others, but the good thing is they all hear it. We begin each rehearsal by praying and dedicating that time and dance to God as our worship. I told them the first week that even if no one in church has any idea what the song is about or cares that we are doing this, as long as it inspires one dancer to recognize what God has done in his or her life and remember to thank Him for that, it is all worth it. We have one rehearsal left before we present the dance in church and I am honestly sad to see this one end.
Possibly one of my proudest moments as a ballet teacher happened when we returned to Noah’s Ark in March this year. The schools had been preparing for Easter Carols, their school Easter program to present to parents and staff. All the students present songs, dances, poems, or skits, and in the past I have often been called upon to teach ballet or stomp. This year we were still gone when preparations started, but I came back to find that Tamar and Brenda (two of my more experienced dancers) had trained the entire fourth grade class using moves and choreography from previous dances I had taught them. It was really special to see that class onstage and know that this time I was not the one who made it happen.
Last year for the newspaper Tamar wrote about her experience as a ballet dancer:
“Hi everyone! I am Tamar, one of the children at Noah’s Ark. I want to tell you a little bit about ballet. I think ballet is one of the most beautiful types of dance. You don’t see it often in Uganda. I did some ballet for the first time when I was in Primary 4 (fourth grade) and now I am in Senior 2 (a sophomore in high school).
“Together with a few other girls I get lessons from A. Katie. She has taught us a lot of new things like arabesque, plié, tourjetté, passé, pique turn, developé and chassé. In the lessons we learn new positions and choreography and at home we have to practice and stretch everyday.
“We perform our ballet dances to music with a Christian message. We have already danced twice in the church service and also during our school Christmas program and in the Christmas cantata. I hope that my friends and I keep getting better at ballet and many people enjoy our talents.”
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| Tamar in her first ballet dance in 2014 |
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| Tamar in her most recent ballet dance in 2019 |
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