Just because becoming a professional ballerina wasn’t hard enough, 14-year-old Stephanie Kurlow is also trying to become the world’s first hijab-wearing Muslim to reach the artform’s pinnacle.
Surprise: tonight’s episode of The Project showed that’s been an absolute struggle and a half, with the Sydney-based Kurlow going so far to say “my mum tried looking for ballet schools that would take in me as a Muslim ballerina and cater to my faith, but we were really surprised to see there weren’t any ballet schools like that.”
Since her ma went and opened her own school, her story has been spread worldwide, but the dancer’s ambitions have remained in Australia. She said “it would be a dream come true to train in the Australian Ballet School.“
“We have dancers of all different religions and faiths, so if there are kids out there who want to be ballet dancers who are you know, Muslim and wear hijab, then we need to work out how we can embrace them into the company as well.”
She’s got a hell of a long way to go, and busting stereotypes at that age, in that environment, cannot be too easy. To boost her on the way to her goals, there’s also currently a crowdfunding project going on.
With any luck Australia’s going to have its own Misty Copeland any time soon. Check it all out below:
We meet the Aussie teen who wants to be the first hijab-wearing ballerina #TheProjectTV https://t.co/nmRQln1fZh
— #TheProjectTV (@theprojecttv) February 22, 2016
Source: The Project.
Photo: Twitter.
