My name is Tuany Tomas Nascimento
I am 22 years old
I'm a ballet teacher at the "Na Ponta dos Pes" project
here at Morro do Adeus in Complexo do Alemao
I started dancing classical ballet because my mother influenced me
It was actually very natural
Once I started I didn't want to stop dancing
My grandmother always told me I had a gift for something like this
I had just turned 18 and needed to help financially at home
and besides that, I became old for professional dancing
so I started to work at an office and during my free time
I started practicing on my own
That was the way I found to continue dancing
So I continued training, but on my own
When I was training there was always
one or two curious girls looking
and they started asking me to teach them
So I was always helping these girls out
but that became a constant thing
In the beginning there were two, then three, then four
and with time the number of girls increased
and it turned out to become a routine
I was always there with them and I realized I wasn't training anymore
but only teaching them
With time people started to look
at what was going on and so it became a social project
It was something that just happened naturally
I didn't wake up wanting to have a social project
It just happened in a very simple way
For people in my neighborhood, dancing ballet isn't a common thing
It's not part of the reality of these girls
They enter classical ballet classes with many challenges
To change what they are used to listening
To leave their reality and enter a totally different world
I know I'm not going to form professional ballerinas
So I think it is important to be real with them
to plant this idea so they grow in a different way
I try to show this to my students
so that they can understand what is happening
and give themselves more value
So I try to show them that they can have much more than this
Growing up is beautiful and that they don't have to limit themselves
They have to try to achieve what is beyond
You can't accept everything as being real
You can't accept the life that you have as being your destiny
as if things necessarily had to be like this and couldn't be changed
To be part of our society doesn't frighten me
What makes me go on instead of quitting
is just the fact that I realized that dancing is my life
I already tried something different and it wasn't interesting
So that makes me confident not to quit, and go on
Dancing transformed me, so why not use this art to transform these girls
and also other people around
I believe I am transforming the girls
as people and also transforming other people
that are seeing this art and just finding it beautiful
This makes me go on
Even though there are millions of things
that sometimes make us quit
I'll go on because this just makes me happy