Enter Season Five of the popular Maltina Dance All (MDA). The family reality television show hit the airwaves across the country on September 4.
The show, which is sponsored by Maltina, a premium non-alcoholic malt brand from the stable of Nigerian Breweries Plc has for the last five years been providing the platform to train Nigerian families in the art of dancing.
Some of these family members have become international ballroom or ballet dancers. A case in point is Ukalina Opuwari of the Opuwari family that won the 2008 edition of the show.
Ukalina, with the assistance of Maltina, enlisted at the Society for the Performing Arts in Nigeria (SPAN) and became the first female Nigerian to be certified in Latin/ballroom by the IDSF/IDAT in Beirut, Lebanon.
Season Five of this competition kicked off with regional auditions in Abuja, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Ibadan, Benin and Lagos.
The first day of the two day auditions were used to reward consumers from ages 5 to 60, while the second day is usually set aside to select individual family representatives who will perform with his family.
If they meet all the necessary medical requirements of fitness are admitted into the Maltina Academy where they will compete with ten other families for the grand prize.
The essence of the show is to lend credence to the creative and intellectual bent of the art of dancing. To this end, both local and foreign-based professional and intellectual dancers are enlisted to train the ten families that make it into the Maltina
Academy every year: They attend lectures and are taken through such courses as the “Art of Choreography,” “Basics of Salsa” etc, aimed at sharpening their dancing and intellectual capabilities.
Over the years, wazobia, salsa, pantomime, hip-hop, samba, pasodoble and contemporary African dance are the dance genres featured each year.
“It is all about bringing the entire family together in an atmosphere of friendship and bonding with other families so that as units they can share common problems and ideas effectively throughout their time at the Academy and beyond,” said Ngozi Nkwoji, Senior Brand Manager, Maltina.
“We are very passionate about the family institution and we will do the little we can as a responsible corporate entity to ensure that the institution continues to remain relevant because a healthy and sound family system will resonate on the Nation as a whole, the family unit is the bedrock of any society.”
Maltina, she added, is interested in equipping both parents and their children that come to the Academy to be relevant to the society they are moving into.
“Our motive is to equip them effectively to confront and proffer solutions to some of the everyday challenges we face in life and for them to use what they garner in the Academy to help other families in the society .
And what better way to do it than through dance which is a concept that transcends tribe, religion, culture and what have you. Dancing has the capacity of drawing people together”
The MDA which is the foremost experiential and sponsorship platform of the Maltina brand is renowned for promoting and enhancing family values and bonding between different families from different cultures across the country.
On why the brand chose dance as its consumer engagement platform, Nkwoji explained dancing is a creative form of expression that transcends boundaries and it is also an art that almost everybody enjoys.
This, she continued, was the main reason the recently concluded auditions was done in such a way that all consumers of the brand benefited through winning prizes or making it into the Academy.
The competition’s overall prize money was raised this year to make this year’s competition “the biggest Maltina Dance All ever.” “So the overall winning family will now take home N5million cash in addition to a brand new family SUV as against N2.5million last year.
We also reviewed the cash award for the first and second runners up, who will now win N1million and N500, 000 respectively.”
After the regional auditions, 15 families, Ngwu, Chidi, Edoho, Owolabi, Adekpe, Ekubo, Efe, Dare, Anigbogu, Utogo, Omukoyem, Anosike, Ojueromi, Ukadike and Obi families were selected to go into the “Boot Camp” where they will compete for the 10 available slots in the Academy.
After days of rigorous trainings, rehearsals and competition, five families, Omukoyem, Anosike, Ojueromi, Ukadike and Obi families fell by the wayside and could not make it into the Academy.
The Ten families; Ngwu, Chidi, Edoho, Owolabi, Adekpe, Ekubo, Efe, Dare, Anigbogu and Utogo family that made it through the opening show are now fully settled into the dance Academy and were taken through the “Art of Choreography” class by Bimbo Obafunwa, the dance director.
He said the classes are necessary because it assists the families’ piece their routines together. He highlighted six basic principles of Art of Choreography which are; presence, space, relationships, actions, body movement and dynamics.
The families were also introduced to the “Wazobia” dance style (contemporary Nigerian dances) by their trainer, the veteran dancer and 2010 Traditional choreographer winner of the Guild of Nigerian Dancers, Victor Phullu.
He taught the families five traditional dance styles which are the “Fishermen Dance style” form Badagry, “Hausa Farmers Dance style,” “Atilogwu Dance style” from the southeast, “Egu-Mabo Dance style” from the southeast and finally the “Royal Dance style” from Benin, Edo state.
The Badagry Fishermen dance was done by the Owolabi family who gave an excellent performance. The Dare family also excited the crowd with a wonderful Atilogwu performance. Efe family performed the Hausa Farmers dance. Adekpe family was next with Egu-Mabo dance, followed by the Ngwu family who brought it on gracefully with the Benin dance.
The final family on stage was the Utogo family performing the Badagry Fishermen dance, the performance portrayed Fishermen who went fishing but couldn’t come home with a catch.
After their performances, the judges put the Chidi, Efe and Edoho families up for possible eviction for not living up to their expectations. They said their choreography lacked creativity, energy and dance vocabulary throughout the entirety of the performance.
They encouraged the families to put their acts together and come back and perform to retain their position in the academy.
The families were introduced to salsa taken by the dance instructor Lillian Yeri and Gbenga Yusuf. They were taught the basics of the dance and the Utogo family became the first family to hit stage with the salsa performance.
They were followed by the Ngwu family then the Adekpe family who did a performance that caught the judges’ attention.
At the end of the show, Utogo and Anigbogu families were put up for possible eviction. According to Muyiwa, the Utogo family was put up for possible eviction because the concept of their piece did not have entertainment quality.
He advised them to go back and think up more creative ways of bringing their concept to the fore as they prepare for another show. For the Anigbogu family, Muyiwa said they were picked for possible eviction due to poor usage of stage.
He advised them to make use of every available part of the stage if need be and learn to connect with each other as a family.
After much deliberation, the judges, Muyiwa Oshinaike, Janell Burgess and Michael Adegoke unanimously decided that, the Anigbogu and Chidi families fell short of demonstrating what it would take to progress further in the academy and were therefore evicted.
The remaining families were later introduced to pantomime which Muyiwa Oshinaike described as a type of play with music, dance and jokes based on fairytales with the use of movement and facial expressions to communicate and tell a story.
He made it clear that based on this, they (the judges) will be looking out for descriptive movement, body vocabulary, stage usage and creativity. At the end of the pantomime performance, the judges put up the Efe, Utogo and Edoho family for possible eviction.
Citing their reasons Muyiwa said the Utogo family had the simplest theme but treated it badly. He said when treating a story there must be an opening, content and concluding part. Two of these families are likely to be evicted today.
Maltina has over the years assembled some of the best dance instructors to train the families each year.
The 2011 instructors include Victor Phullu, an expert in Nigerian dances, Gbenga Yusuf and Lillian Yeri, experts in salsa, Michael Adegoke, three-time United States Professional Show dance champion and worldwide professional ballroom show dancer; Janell Burgess, performing artist, choreographer, instructor and dancer and Muyiwa Oshinaike, a 30-year veteran of Nigerian dance and culture.
The MDA Season five will climax with a spectacular show at Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos on September 24.
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