Away from war, Syrians find their rhythm in ballroom dancing

One, two, three, stop. Five, six, seven, stop: A group of young Syrian men and women step, sway and twirl to the backdrop of salsa music, dancing their worries away.

For an hour a week in a Damascus studio, their instructor Adnan Mohammed, 42, teaches a class the basics of Latin dancing, helping his students forget the troubles of war - if even briefly.

"They come out a different person," Mohammed says.

For his students, ballroom dancing is a form of release, finding their rhythm in music away from their country's many social and economic pressures. For that one hour, they push Syria's 11-year war from their minds, the politics, the anxiety over the economic crisis and the country's constantly depreciating currency.

"They put that energy aside and they start to be optimistic," Mohammed added. "I believe we are giving them the energy to stay in the country. Now there is a reason for them to stay."

Syria's war, which erupted in 2011, has killed over half a million people and displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million. With the military help of allies Russia and Iran, Syrian President Bashar Assad has managed to crush the armed uprising against him except for a few areas that remain outside of government control.

For the past several years, conflict lines have been largely frozen, but the war has wreaked unfathomable destruction on the country. A severe economic crisis has set in, with many barely managing to make ends meet.

Mohammed, who opened a dance school 15 years ago, says people still kept coming to his classes throughout the war.

But the biggest blow was when the coronavirus pandemic shut everything down, even his studio.

With pandemic restrictions now mostly lifted, students...

Continue reading on: