20-year-old Yara Khudair performs ballet on the stage of the ancient theater of Shahba town in the countryside of Sweida province in southern Syria on Nov.14, 2018. (Xinhua/Hummam Sheikh Ali)
SWEIDA, Syria, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- In her pink leotards, 20-year-old Yara Khudair adds a new color to the ancient places in Syria with her vivid ballet dancing.
In Syria, ballet is a relatively imported form of art and Khudair, who specializes in ballet, gymnastics and modern dance, hopes to "immortalize ballet in Syria."
But what has drawn attention to this young woman is not her capacity as a ballet dancer, as it is now normal for modern families to have their daughters learning the classic form of art to build a flexible and healthier body.
It is because she has moved the performing venue from traditional classrooms or institutions to ancient places, such as the old city of Damascus and historic theaters across Syria, including the town of Shahba in the southern province of Sweida.
She told Xinhua that when she performs on ancient stages, she feels that her elegant moves have brought the art back to the arenas as previous artists did there before.
On a rainy day in Shahba, Khudair, glowing in her pink leotards, sauntered over to the old stage of the town before starting her ballet routine in the cold.
The flashy color of her outfit beamed across the open-air ancient theater dotted with shimmering old brown stones, where school girls on their way back home were tempted to stop and observe such braving performance after an autumn shower.
Khudair said she wants to bring art back to the historic places of the country which has been suffering more than seven years of war.
"I want to bring art back to the old theaters that were arenas for art in the past and I wanted to revive and spread art again in these old places," she said.
"I also want to send a message of love and art to the world from the places that have suffered from a long war," the Syrian youth added.
Khudair, also a student of media communication, explained that Syria's image has changed during the war and spreading the message of art will help her country regain its lost glamor.
"I want to spread the message that shows our culture and civilization to the world because our image has changed in the minds of many people about Syria, because of the crisis that Syria has gone through and I would like to spread the professional ballet dancing in Syria," she noted.