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.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS