Edwin 'edu' Ooro:Whatever you do, be the best

You dance, train dancers, come up with dance steps and routines. This pays your bills. A married man with a six-year-old son. Did you father see this coming?

Never. My father is an engineer, of few words. He is one those strict fathers with a regular morning routing that includes shaving his beard using those Bic Razor or Gillette sticks. Telling such a man that you want to dance for a living is/would have been a disaster. I would sneak to jam sessions and to dance completions in Nairobi; everything was hush-hush, no telling him and him never seeing anything. This was late primary and high school.

So you were one of those kids who danced under trees at break time in school and walked around with a group of 'wannabe' hangers-on?

Sort of. When you are young, being able to execute some crazy moves makes you the ‘it’ guy... the cool kid who everyone wants to sit with at lunch or be seen with during breaks. It also helped with the girls. You kind of had a head-start in the seduction thing - which wasn’t much back then, but still it was a head-start.

At some point your father clearly had to know. How did it happen and how did he react?

He never knew a thing until after my four years in high school. The man would have slaughtered me. When in Form Two and Three I used lie to him. You know; ‘I’m going for drama festival.’ kind of lies. Since I was into physical clubs in school - scouts club for instance, he planned to get me into National Youth Service (NYS). He even bought a box, iron box- ile ya makaa- and other things. Two days to the day I was supposed to leave for NYS, I took off with a friend. We went to the coastal town of Mombasa.

To do what in Mombasa?

We thought we could make money dancing in clubs. A club manager told us that if we attracted people into the club, he would pay us. If not, we get nothing. Like all young people who go into the world unprepared, we found a cruel world. In one month we were on a night bus coming back to Nairobi.

Sounds like the kind of a journey where you go through all possible explanations and end up with truckloads of excuses...

Sneaking away, one month, no communication. All outcomes looked terrible.

When you got home...?

Do you greet him? Do you stand quietly? I chose the quiet option. He was in his room, shaving his beard. At the door, my mother greeted me and pointed to the bedroom door. So I walked in.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that dance is what you wanted?’ I had no answer. ‘Whatever you do, ensure that that you are the best at it.’ With that, he told me to leave the bedroom.

It looked like I’d gotten off easy but I knew that I had not. In fact, the way I understood the unspoken message was that if things don’t work my way, I should never return home or turn to him.

So did you work something out?

I had to. I met the same friend of mine who we had run away with and told him flat out that we were no longer going to dance for fun. It was going to be a job and so we went looking for places to dance. Eventually, we landed at Safari Park hotel.

Eddie had to take dancing lessons so that he could enhance his focus and control of body parts. Does dance enhance the mind? Or is focus just part of a dancer’s mind?

I would not call it a dancer’s mind. It is about wanting something and going for it. You have to be committed, focused and keen. People think that dancing is natural, just moving body parts. It is not. Dance can be learnt; you have to know about body lines, body structure, you have to master your steps and moves. The hours are probably worse than those of a regular career. Morning to evening and sometimes night sessions. And very limited holidays. Such a regimen will influence and strengthen your mind and body, even spirit I guess.

You left Safari Park as a dance trainer, and have continued with dancing and choreography since then. What goes on in your mind when you get onto the stage, the silent audience just before the beats/songs start playing?

It does not even start on stage. It starts backstage. How is the crowd? Wako aje? Will they applaud? Those are the questions in your mind. Because you know your moves, you have routinely done and repeated them so much that you can dance with your eyes closed. What you don’t know is the stranger you are just about to meet when you come from the back onto the stage.

How do dancers overcome such thoughts?

You just go do your thing...15 seconds into your routine, you will know if the crowd is with you or not. If they are with you, you’d want to stay there forever. If they are not with you, you better worker on getting them on board or else you’ll wish for rain.

Do you as an individual still have such worries?

That is where experience comes in. Now we know what people want, what costumes, what moves are trending and how to handle different audiences.

Has the nature of dance changed if you compare when you started and today?

It has. In the past it used to be about dance-steps and moves. Not so today. You have to incorporate theatre into your dance. That means giving the dancers characters that they will dance/act out on stage.

Tell us about Kenyan music artistes. You work with them, for their music videos and during concerts. Specifically tell us about preparations because people often complain about the quality of their music videos and stage performances.

If as a musician you’d want to include dancers as part of performance band or for a music video; do it correctly. There are artists who will call three days to an event, saying they want dancers. Such performances where there was little rehearsal time for the artist and the dancers to get in sync are always visible since on stage. The artiste and dancers look like they are two different groups, doing different things, not coordinated and generally a bad show.

What could be the problem here then?

The artistes have gotten used the audience. This will hurt the artist if he/she goes to a place where no one knows them.

If you were to offer your thoughts on how the artistes ought to go about their video and event projects that include dancers?

For videos, put in the time. Work on it. A week or two of practice. Rehearse with the dancers so that a movement of your finger can signal them to switch moves without two dancers missing that finger movement. As for the shows, in my view, if you have a performance/event on Saturday, train with your dancers from Monday. Of course it is not a whole day’s practice. These are practice sessions that run for a few hours like two or three.

What is the current state of the Kenyan music videos?

Our music videos do not match the standards of the videos that people have access to from other countries and abroad. Ours are too packed. Like the artist wants to put in everything in a clip of four minutes; it is not a movie! Should they choose to include dancers as part of the music video, let them give the dancers time so that the effect of the dances can be felt in the video.

Four artistes that can also dance in Kenya...

Wyre is a good dancer, Victoria Kimani, STL and Avril.