A deaf dancer has just won an online dancing competition. He emerged overall best in the competitive dance contest ahead 17 hearing contestants.
The dancing challenge was put together and hosted by @rosemonday to encourage fledgling dance talents in Ghana to participate and win prizes.
In an interview with Emmanuel Duah, winner of the competition, he explained how he got informed about the dancing competition via a dance chatroom and summoned confidence to participate believing he could do it. Now that’s self-belief!
Requirements to participate in the competition according to the organiser, @rosemonday includes followership on her official instagram page, downloading #imapartybymyself, a song in her bio, a 1 minute dance video to be filmed and posted on one’s page, tag the organiser using the hashtag #imapartybymyself.
One begins to wonder how Duah was able to get his dance steps in sync with the music flow despite his hearing difficulty.
Duah gave some insight in the interview: “I downloaded the song and used a musicbox to feel the vibrations”
“As soon as I got the beat I went with it. I found out it synced, so I set about shooting the video with all the energy I could provide”.
Duah, who is the executive director of All Life Lives Over Personal Action (Allopa) Junizzy, is a talented Ghanaian deaf dancer who earlier emerged 3rd position in the “Deaf can dance challenge” an online contest organized by Seam consults in July this year. In that competition, he bested 34 Nigerian Deaf contestants.
While expressing excitement and gratitude to God for the win, Duah confessed he didn’t expect to come out tops and was simply overwhelmed when declared winner.
The Ghanaian dancing talent says he will use the prize money from the win to help create more opportunities for talented deaf young people out there by hosting a theatre where they can hone and display their skills to raise funds.
He advised youths not to relent on their efforts. He reminds them that prayer, self-confidence and hardwork are key to building better careers for themselves. “It’s not about perfection, he reiterates. Rather, it’s about effort. And when you bring that effort to bear every single day, that’s where transformation happens”.
Duah also called on government to give Persons with Disabilities equal opportunities.
“I want them to know that we are also human beings. We have the ability to do work. So with all due respect, they should give us equal opportunities”, he concluded