As one makes his way through the entrance of the heart of Ghana’s home of international and local events, the Accra International Conference Centre, Friday night, you could easily feel the tension the atmosphere held - it was like time bomb ready to explode. Yes, explode!
Ghana became the battle ground for an African war as winners of five countries converged at the venue for the grand finale of Africa’s biggest dance showpiece, the 2010 Malta Guinness Street Dance PanAfrican Championship.
Each participating group being winners in their respective countries were ready to battle each other for the winner takes all prize tag of US$ 35,000, the bragging rights as champions of Africa and the chance to represent Africa at the world finals.
The five, Ghana’s High Spirit, Nigeria’s X-Fellas, Cameroon’s Extreme Fusion, Kenya’s Sisko and Tanzania’s Best Friends poised to take fame and pride back to their countries looked ever ready as the clock ticked to the start of what was to be a memorable night.
Even before the main event commenced, Joy FM’s DJ Black, DJ for the night, charged patrons who decided to fight for dancing honours, with virtually every one on their feet, moving and shaking to the sounds. It was a beautiful sight to behold.
The showdown
And then, lights, camera action and the show finally began. It was the judges, Glenn Ball from UK, Prudanse Maidou from Paris and Mike Ross from Uganda who took turns to make a 'statement' to the already excited crowd. From one dance move to the other, the judges proved that they equally have a fair knowledge of what was about to go down.
After the formal introduction and a well choreographed introduction by the competing countries, the game was on.
Round one, My country: Contestants had to show off an image of their respective countries and it was X-Fellas who first took the stage. Clad in green and white military-like costume, they showed spectacular dance moves to the admiration of all.
Best Friends and Sisko followed suit. High Spirit with their Kwame Nkrumah and Independence day performance sent the whole auditorium agog. Extreme Fusion ended the round receiving thunderous applauds. Soon they were back with Round two. The dancers had the free will to give off their best in their own style. Sisko, Extreme Fusion, X-Fellas, Best Friends and High Spirit in that order they came.
Tanzania's Best Friends and Kenya's Sisko were eliminated after that round. Now the heat was on, it was left with Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon.
And the big question now was which two dance groups would be moving on to the finale with the backdrop that they have all given off their best and equally delighted the audience. After what was clearly a daunting task in separating the boys from the men, Ghana and Nigeria made their way to the finale rekindling the old age rivalry between the two power houses in West Africa and Africa as a whole. The two had a simple but difficult task to impress the judges to annex the coveted title.
After tossing of a coin, it was Ghana which had to go first, and hoping to be the early birds to capture the hearts of the judges, but the much improved Nigeria showed the Ghanaian audience the pot-holes in the performance by their compatriots. With their spectacular performance, Nigeria’s X-Fellas were crown champions of the day.
The announcement saw some pockets of Nigerians shouting with excitement as their Ghanaian contenders look on with broken hearts. Nigeria’s X-Fellas then walked away with US$35,000, the bragging rights as champions of Africa and Africa's representative at the world finals.
The night wouldn’t have been complete without musical performance from Rough N Smooth, VIP, Kris Stars dancers and Bino. Also in attendance at the finale were Minister of Tourism, Zita Okai Kwei, Managing Director of Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited, Mr. Ekwunife Okoli, and Ama Okyere, the Marketing Director of GGBL.
0 comments:
Post a Comment