Columba Chinazo has won the first ever Deaf Can Dance online challenge.
Tagged “Deaf Can Dance”, the competition which was organised by Interpreters and sponsored by Deaf donors was intense and highly competitive and had about 37 contestants across Nigeria and Ghana.
Having emerged as one of the 3 finalists, Chinazo, the 2nd runner-up at Most Beautiful Deaf Girl in Nigeria (MBDGN) 2019 and her partner polled a total evaluation of 83% against last year 1st runner-up at MBDGN, Odedina Abosede who was placed 2nd with an evaluation of 80% and 3rd placed by Ghanaian Dancer, Emmanuel Duah who polled 74%.
In a chat with Inclusive News Network (INN), 2nd placed winner at Deaf can Dance challenge, Odedina Abosede said “I’m grateful, glory and honor to God that made it possible for me, Osaretin and David (to go this far in the competition). I still feel happy because hope never end. There is still hope. God’s time is the best”
She added that she plans to use her roles as a dancer to help deaf children.
“My plan for the future is to help the deaf children. When I was a little young I felt very luck because so many people helped me and inspired me and I hope in the future I can help more deaf children to feel lucky. Also I want deaf children and ladies to look at me and see my face, my ability and I want them to see their faces reflected in mine”
Emmanuel Duah, a 25-year old from Kibi in the Eastern Region of Ghana who was one of the finalists at the Deaf Can Dance challenge said he was happy and grateful because among the 37 Deaf dancers he was able to get to the top 3 winners.
Asked about the plans he has for the competition next year he added “Am not waiting for it to get closer to me and my squad. We are still on rehearsals.”
Emmanuel, the Executive Director of All Life Lives Over Personal Action (Allopa) called “Deaf Allopa Crews”, in a chat with INN urged the organisers to consider making the competition a live event noting that the challenge with the online application is that not all participants can provide quality videos to send, buying of items .
Advising on future competition, Emmanuel added, “For the future plans on this competition I think the organisation should be live. We should all be at one place and perform”
He continued, “Many people are saying it (the selection of the finalists) is a cheat but to me it’s the beginning of greatness”.
Efforts to reach the winner of the competition, Columba Chinazo proves abortive as she was not responsive when INN had contacted her via WhatsApp messenger.
Organiser of the Deaf Can Dance challenge, Interpreter, Samuel James, sharing his experiences on the competition said “like every new thing, so much to learn from, so much to input and so much to gain from it for improvement for subsequent ones.
“It was a very interesting project and I do not have any regrets I selves into it, although being a novel idea in this part of the world. It was exciting and interesting too. I have all intentions to continue this and make it even better and bigger next year.”
Asked about the controversy that followed the selection of the 3 finalists, he said, “it was expected. It is a natural reaction. No one wants to loose, we all want to win but in a Competition, we only have two groups of people, the winners and the other part.
“Sentiments abound and it is only right for us to put in place rules that will make more people see it as a fair play. That we did already, however, we will still have those who think otherwise, hence, the further need for one of the Judges to address the situation and educate on the rules put in place in the first place. So we still had to fall back in the rules.
“A Competition as this being novel in the Deaf community needs clarity and that was what we did to put people in order. It’s natural for people to feel that way and it is importantly natural for us to also deal with such in wisdom and understanding.”
On if he has future plans for this kind of competition, Samuel James said “Yes, we have big future plans ahead of us. Next year’s Competition would be Africa wide competition” Deaf Can Dance Africa” We have several other plans even as we have started putting a team together to present several Dance videos for the propagation of that slogan “Deaf Can Do Anything Except Hear”.
“As soon as plans are in place we will all let this out. We are still working” he concluded.