Majority of Nigerian dancers lead a lifestyle of drugs – Kaffy opens up

Veteran Nigerian professional dancer, Kafayat Shafau-Ameh popularly known as Kaffy has opened up on one of the reasons the industry are losing it’s talented dancers.

Nigeria Entertainment Industry have been rocked with a lot of sad news in the past

few months especially from the dance industry who have had a quite number of

death amidst them.

Kaffy have now disclosed one of the major reasons dancers are being pronounced

dead in the industry.

She disclosed this at an event her non -governmental organisation, Kreative Arts

Foundation for Youths, recently collaborated with other stakeholders in the

industry to host a virtual leadership summit .

The programme which was attended by healthcare providers, health management

organisations life coaches, dance group leaders and dance artistes discussed

improving the welfare of dancers in the country .

Kaffy said at the event,

“More than 98 per cent of dancers don ’t have health insurance and self -awareness.”

“The majority lead a lifestyle of drugs , peer pressure , poor mental wellbeing , and

personal irresponsibility . This is the bane of the industry.”

“Until every corporate dance leader is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring

that every staff ( dancer ) has a valid health insurance cover.”

Speaking further, Kaffy maintained that the dance industry was unstructured for a variety of reasons.

She added,

“ The dance industry is largely unstructured for many reasons.”

“Firstly , the low level of entry into the industry is a problem.”

“The art of dance in Africa is appreciated even when one is not a professional.

Because of this , many young people don’ t go through the proper channels of training.”

“Many dancers operate from the place of talent alone and do not harness the skills or improve in areas they should by going to dance schools.”

“We may not have enough dance academies in the country , but there are ( some out there ).”

“A lot of young people form groups based on the common interest of dancing .”

“ In my case, when I started , I thought of the services I wanted to provide.”

“I immediately looked into registering a company and structuring it as one though I

was dealing with the challenge of getting people to understand contracts and other issues .”