Meet the faces behind Jabba Junior dance crew

BERRY MANZI is a young innovative and ambitious man. In 2009 together with two friends they came up with an idea of starting up what has today become one of the most respected and wanted dance crews in the country, Jabba Junior. Sarah Kwihangana interviewed Manzi on how they started this dance crew and what they have been up to lately. See what he had to say;How did you come up with an idea of starting Jabba Junior dance crew?It was in 2009 and there was a talent show at school and my colleagues Isaac Gasangwa and Ikuzwe Iba used to choreograph dance moves for students. So when I joined them I told them that we could make this even bigger by forming a dance group that could perform at events and be paid. Luckily they bought the idea and we decided to get the best dancers from the talent show at school to be members of the group. It takes courage to start up such a project. Briefly tell us how dance was embraced at that time?When we started it was like a good football player playing from his home and nobody knows them, dance had no image at that time. But later as the music industry evolved, dance also started to be appreciated. Even the dance crews at the time were old school, they used to dance to old songs with old moves but when we came in we brought a new school version of dance with different dance styles.How is the dance business today, can one solely depend on it?Dance has really evolved over the years; we now get paid for our work and there is even a school of dance today called Urban School of Dance and our members are currently there for training. Well I can’t say that one can solely depend on dancing today but it will be possible with time. Currently each member of my crew is able to earn 500 dollars a month.So how have you managed to keep the group together for all those years?If there is something bad happening in the group, I always try to make a joke about it, and find a funny solution. That is how we have managed to stay together, if someone is not happy with the rest of the members we always come up with a joke that will make him talk at the end of the day.What does it take for one to start up such a crew?Patience, then one should know where they want to go and what they want to accomplish.What are some of the things you are proud to have achieved as one of the founders of Jabba Junior?We have performed at big events with an audience of over 25000 people and we have won several dance competitions such as the Kigali Triology Party 2011, the MTN Big Up 2012, and Rwanda Tel Extravaganza Dance Competition 2010Jabba Junior has been quiet the whole of 2013, what have you been up to?In 2013 we decided to take a break and focus more on the dance school to learn some new moves and repackage what we have to offer to the public. So our fans should expect many new and nice things this year.What are some of the challenges you face?We sometimes organise our own events like in 2012 we did an event called it is all about dance season 1 with an aim of promoting other dance groups that are not known in the country. However we didn’t achieve our goal because we lacked sponsors.What are the group’s future plans?This year we will be active again as we are organising charity events in April and the benefits will go to genocide survivors. We are also going to take part in the Rwanda Dance Festival due in July and we shall also have a reunion dance around that time for some of our members that have been out of the country.

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Meet the faces behind Jabba Junior dance crew