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.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress