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Lagos Crowd ‘Hijack’ Port Harcourt Audition Of Dance With Peter

The final audition of the TV reality show, Dance with Peter, was nearly hijacked by contestants, who traveled from Lagos to Port Harcourt, to slug it out with local contestants in Port Harcourt. The Port Harcourt audition presented the last opportunity for those interested in participating at the show. Consequently, a lot of contestants, who…

The final audition of the TV reality show, Dance with Peter, was nearly hijacked by contestants, who traveled from Lagos to Port Harcourt, to slug it out with local contestants in Port Harcourt.

The Port Harcourt audition presented the last opportunity for those interested in participating at the show. Consequently, a lot of contestants, who narrowly missed the qualifying tickets from previous auditions, traveled to Port Harcourt to try their luck for the final time.

The Lagos crowd” as one of the judges put it, put up brilliant performances, leading many of them to secure qualifications into the second round of the audition.

The promoter of the show, Peter Okoye of Psquare, who recognised most of the contestants from their earlier appearances in Lagos, at some point, jumped up from his seat in annoyance to challenge the local contestants to raise their game.

Port Harcourt, what is happening?  You are hosting this audition. Why are you breaking my heart by letting people who came all the way from Lagos to run away with the tickets? This region is richly talented. It’s just that you people are not taking it as seriously as those guys from Lagos have taken it,” he said.

The Port Harcourt audition also marked the first time the women would put up a strong performance against their men folk in the three-week long auditions in four major Nigerian cities and the capital city of Ghana, Accra.

The boys, who dazzled the judges with their brilliance, dominated all the previous auditions. However, at the Port Harcourt audition, the ladies matched them, wit for wit and brawn for brawn, taking away three of the available qualifying tickets.

The development was applauded by Dance star, Kaffy, who said the outcome would encourage more women to embrace dancing as a profession. Among the groups that fought for qualifying tickets was Expression, a group of talented boys who said they were at the audition because they believed dance was the ticket to break the cycle of poverty in their families.

The group, Expression, was formed, according to one of them, Tunde Olaleye, as a way of earning a living, considering the poor conditions of their individual families.

I am from a very humble background. My parents are from Osun State, but are in Port Harcourt to hustle and we also need to put in our own efforts to ensure that we are alive and well,” he said.

Olaleye said members of the group engaged in menial jobs and performed at private and public functions, including weddings to sustain themselves and their families with whatever they received as payments. He said the group was determined to focus on dance as a means of economically empowering themselves and their families.

Their routine at the audition included some stunts and daring dance moves, the climax of which was the multiple back flips by the five year-old member of the group. The group also wowed the judges by creatively forming a motorcycle with their bodies at one point in their performance.

About 300 individuals and groups fought for the available six qualifying tickets from the Port Harcourt audition.

The next stage of the show will see the 30 contestants from the five auditions converging on Lagos, where they will slug it out for the star prize of N3million, a Rav4 SUV and a rare opportunity to feature in PSquare; next music video. Also available for grabs is a Honda City plus N2m and a Kia Rio, with N1m for the first and second runners-up respectively. The first and second runners up will also have the grace to dance with a Glo ambassador each in their next music videos.

 

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