After one viral video in 2020, Anthony Madu went from pirouetting on the dusty streets of Lagos, Nigeria, to dancing in the corridors of a prestigious British dance school.
Madu’s extraordinary story, which has seen him become a celebrity and even receive a handshake from Britain’s Queen Camilla, has been documented for the silver screen and was released on Disney+ on Friday.
The documentary follows the teenager more than a year, between 2021 and 2022, when he leaves Nigeria for Birmingham’s Elmhurst Ballet School.
Photo: AFP
“I really feel really proud of myself, but it’s also surreal at the same time to see yourself in a movie as to me it’s just my life,” Madu said. “I often think why me and what if the video of me dancing hadn’t gone viral? I think it must have been faith.”
Madu was spotted by Elmhurst Ballet School after a video of him pirouetting in a disadvantaged area in Lagos, a city of 20 million people, went viral.
He has since been nicknamed the “Nigerian Billy Elliot” in reference to the 2000 film of the same name in which a working-class British boy develops a passion for ballet.
“I feel a sense of freedom and that I am where I am meant to be at this point in my life,” Madu said.
However, his journey to success has come with some bumps along the way, especially as the cultural gap widens between him and his family at home in Nigeria.
“You talk like a white man,” Madu’s mother told him over the phone — referring to a change in accent after a few months in England.
After she offered to take him to church when he goes on vacation back home to Lagos, Madu told her: “I need a therapist, not a prophet.”
At the age of just 14, Madu has no limit to his dreams.
“I don’t know what the future holds for me... I have a lot of dreams ... that I want to experience in my life. What I do know is that Nigeria will always be my home. I hold Nigeria and my family close to my heart,” he said.
The documentary, Madu, was directed by Nigerian director Joel Kachi Benson and US director Matthew Ogens.
“This story is like a miracle, no one saw it coming. To the kids: Don’t be afraid to dream, your aspirations are very valid, don’t let anyone say it’s impossible,” Benson said.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant