Blog: Ballet Shoes

Joanah Montiano was born to dance. She began dancing when she was five and her first time performing in front of an audience led to an award: the best performer of the year. Back then, she was in elementary school and her aunt taught her the “Pearly Shell” dance.

 Coming from a family for dancers, Joanah was first formally introduced to the world of dance when she was eight. Her mother was a secretary in the dance academy, RGRV, and one day the director asked her mother if Joanah would like to try out for the school. Dancing became her life as she learned various forms of dance from classical ballet to jazz and hip-hop.

When she was 13, Joanah’s dance teacher offered Joanah to assist her in teaching the class which then led her to teach her first class at 15. Raised by a single mother with two other siblings, an extra income really mattered to Joanah as she could now begin contributing to her family.

In university, Joanah studied English and Education which trained her well for a future career as a dance teacher. After university, she got back into teaching dance at the academy and upon the recommendation of her ballet teacher, she applied to IAID in Qatar. Soon, on the 25th of December, she landed in Qatar three years ago.

In Qatar, she was the first Filipina ballet teacher. Being the only Filipina dance teacher in Qatar is hard because generally Filipinas’ work in other professions in Qatar and people did not expect her to teach dance. Joanah said that “Parents from many nationalities ask for [her] credentials.” Some parents expect more than the credentials she has as she is from the Philippines. However, despite that her classes jumped from 15 to 30 to 100 students within a year and she doesn’t feel hurt when she’s asked about her credentials because she understands they get to know.

COVID- 19 has been a challenge because she is teaching online. She teaches mostly children and keeping their attention can be difficult but she gets to be creative with the different ways of keeping their attention.

She says “dance is [her] life” and makes her a stronger person. Joanah dreams of starting her own ballet studio as a present for her mother that her mother  could manage.