All roads lead to Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, on Saturday August 13, as Ijoya Rumble Dance Festival holds, beginning from 10am.
Organised by entertainment marketing and advertising agency, Real Made in Africa, Ijoya Rumble is a family entertainment TV/online dance show that seeks to identify and reward young talents in Nigeria.
According to the President/Founder, Ijoya Rumble, Churchill Edore, the event will spotlight the role of dance as a tool for advocacy, youth empowerment and engagement. “I am based abroad. I came home purposely for this programme. Dance is one of my hobbies. So, with this, I am actually giving back to the society. Nigerians are in pains right now, so we thought of putting smiles on the faces of people with this programme. We are telling Nigerians to come and free themselves from the economic bites and pains they are currently going through,” he said.
Asked if the dance festival is restricted only to Lagos, Edore explained that it would storm major communities in Nigeria, giving opportunities to vibrant youths. In his words: “Ijoya Rumble Dance Festival will attract youths from higher institutions and communities in Nigeria, to build awareness and traffic to the bigger dance contest scheduled for December 2022. We are using this medium to bring lots of youths out of the streets to become dancers and rise from grass to grace, and make Nigeria better. We are only starting in Lagos, after which we’ll go to every local government in every state. Then the finalists will come to Lagos for the grand finale where prizes will be awarded. Now the contest is self-funded. We are open to partnerships and sponsorships.”
Andrew Moses, project coordinator, promised participants and guests lots of fun and entertainment at the show. “There is going to be a lot of entertainment apart from dancing. We are expecting a whole lot of artistes, musicians to come and perform before the dance proper. It’s going to be a very entertaining day. We are starting from auditions, to selection of the best dancers and then the grand finale. A winner will emerge by 6pm on that day,” he stated.
However, while the winner will smile to the bank with a whopping $1,000 (N700,000), five lucky individuals/groups would go home with N50,000 each. There are also consolation prizes for other contestants such as recharge cards, gift cards etc.
To participate, interested candidates aged 16 years and above should record a one-minute dance video of themselves and send to Ijoya’s Instagram page: #ijoyarumble/@ijoyarumble. But incase of any snag, they are expected to come to the venue for on the spot registration. The show will be live-streamed.