Who am I?

My name is Katia. I believe that everyone should have a chance to reach their potential and to experience new things and ideas regardless of their financial circumstances. 

Born in Kiev, Ukraine  I moved to Australia in 1993.
My mother and I lived on welfare while she retrained as a doctor. 

During my childhood I found it hard to stay with ballet (the few classes that I managed to take) - lack of money, constant moving around, little support for the art form and poor English did nothing to inspire my dancing. I stopped dancing.

As an adult I was lucky enough to try again. I finally gained enough courage and financial resources to dance and sit my Intermediate RAD Exam in October 2015. 

It wasn't until I started attending regular ballet classes that I realised that most of the students were from the middle-upper class in adult and children's schools. 

I wanted to do something that would promote the love many have for ballet because of the many wonderful things that ballet brings: discipline, musicality, artistry and movement.  Not to mention the increasingly important mental and physical training which has an impact in many of life's domains. 

Our mission at Ballet Without Borders is to do just that, enable children to participate in ballet education regardless of the social or economic constraints that they may face.