The Flower Age

  There are many ways to find your voice. For Christine Matthée , it was through dance. As a child, Christine was extremely shy. She started speaking very late and struggled with severe dyslexia and other learning difficulties that made communication and school particularly challenging. She found it difficult to fit into the world around her, but dance was the one place where she felt at home. What began as a love for music and movement gradually became much more than a passion. It gave Christine a way to communicate, to understand herself and, eventually, to find her place in the world. Today, she runs La Passerelle Dance Studio in Schaerbeek, which she founded in September 2000. But the journey from the shy little girl who struggled to communicate to the woman who now teaches, choreographs and nurtures young dancers was anything but straightforward. It took determination, rejection, heartbreak, financial uncertainty and a great deal of courage. Above all, it took Christine's re...

  London major April 2024 What does a runner run after or for? Why do they run so long? Why do they put their bodies through such gruelling performances? As if a simple 3 km wasn't enough, people are running 50-plus kilometres now. Is it the fountain of youth that they seek? Is it perfect health? I haven't yet found the answer in one simple sentence. Everyone is doing it for a different reason, I guess. However, I met someone recently who seems to be defying the signs of age, thanks to her running. Pushpa Bhatt , 70, is a striking woman. She simply said “Hi” over the phone, but somehow, even that first greeting gave me a sense of the woman I was about to meet. She was wearing a dress I would love to be wearing, but I find that I'm not in the shape right now to carry it with the ease with which she did. What I do know is that she has been running since 2002. And that definitely shows, even over my tiny phone screen. Pushpa is a Bombay girl, like me. She grew up in South Bomb...