The Dance Queen   

Published on July 5, 2010 by TheNEWS   ·   9 Comments

Her dream was to become an aeronautic engineer, but Kafayat Shafau, aka Kaffy has ended up a dancerian immensely successful one

Kafayat Shafau, better known as Kaffy, can justifiably claim to be busier than the proverbial bee. Hyperbolic? Check her out: She runs her own dance school, acts as aerobics instructor to many members of the monied class (read Razak Okoya, Mike Adenuga and the Murray-Bruces), acts as talent manager at concerts, does choreography, dances in music videos and acts as judge on television dance shows.

Her life is certainly more hectic than the average life. And it has always been that way. In 2006, she led her dance group Imagnetos to win the Nokia Danceathon, a contest organised by the Silverbird Group, during which she danced non-stop for 55hours 40minutes. The feat erased the previous world record of 52hours 3minutes set by the Heart Health Hop at a dance party marathon organised by St. Joseph Aspirin at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in the United States in 2003. It also earned the group a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records.

After her success at the danceathon challenge, Kaffy set up a dance school with the N1.5million individual cash prize she won.

Her dance school, she claims, was an instant hit. According to Kaffy, 80 per cent of dancers in Lagos and at least 30 per cent across the country are products of the school.

We help these youths realise their ability to dance and at the same time maintain their moral values and also impact on their environment through dance and that, among many other things, is what I have been doing in recent times, she told TheNEWS.

In the last few years, Kaffy has been at the forefront of dance and choreography. Her resume is impressive. Aside from being the lead judge in the current season of Malta Guinness Street Dance Africa, she had also been a judge in the Maltina Dance All competition. At the 2010 Hip-Hop World Music Awards, she was the choreographer and talent manager. Similarly, she was the main choreographer for the first African edition of the popular High School Musical show.

Then, the music videos. Kaffy featured in Ruggedman’s Baraje, Adewale Ayuba’s Ijo Fuji, Fazeís Faze Alone, Olu Maintainís Jedi Jedi, and P-Square’s, Busy Body and Roll It to mention a few.

Where does all the energy come from? Honestly, I don’t know where all the energy comes from. But one thing I do know is that if I set my mind on something, I’ll do it. I’ll say in retrospect that my mind drives me. Once I put my mind on something, the Grace of God is established in it,î she says.

She may be living a dream, but as a child, her dream was totally unrelated to the one she is living. As a child from a middle class homeñshe schooled in Britain and NigeriañKaffy dreamt of becoming an aeronautic engineer. It was something her father thought was inappropriate for girls and discouraged her.

After her secondary education, Kaffy had problems gaining admission into a tertiary institution. Five years after, she thought she got lucky when she was offered admission to study Mechanical Engineering at the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos. Soon after, the luck ran out when she could not pay the fees and had to quit. Again, luck smiled at her. She gained admission into Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, to study Sport Science. But she would finish with a diploma in Data Processing.

Dancing, however, had never been far away. As a pupil at Chrisland Schools, Opebi, Lagos, the school encouraged dancing among its pupils. At eight in 1988, she was a member of the schoolís troupe that performed a ballet routine at the University of Lagos. Shortly after that performance, she featured as a dancer in the music video of Fuji star, General Kollington Ayinlaís Blessing. That was the launch pad. Kaffy then began learning skills by watching videos of the likes of Michael Jackson, Usher Raymond and Ginuwine.

I’m a visual learner. I watch and I can adapt. So, I watched and wondered what was making them tick. I discovered that itís not about the style, but the coordination of the body. I decided to make my body fit so as to be able to coordinate the different styles of dance,î she says.

That body was put to other uses, notably aerobics, basketball and soccer.

As a celebrity, Kaffy has had her own share of controversies. At a time, there were speculations that the she had been stripped of the dance record she set, but she claims nothing of the sort happened, as the record remains documented with the Guinness World Records though it has been broken by another group.

ìPeople will always say different things; it is natural. We have people who will just hate us, those that doubt us and those who would want to pull you down. People always have misconceptions because they don’t understand us. But all these categories of people are there in our life for a reason. They are the spice of life, she says.

There were also whispers of substance abuse. Drugs? I don’t do drugs at all. I don’t even recommend drugs for my clients. I am a physical therapist. The human body is incredible. It is capable of achieving seemingly unbelievable feats. Drugs will always backfire. Even drinking coffee that contains caffeine, which is even legal, affected us greatly. Imagine if you took a pain killer at that moment, you are in trouble. If I’m doing drugs, time will tell. In fact, if I had used drugs, I might have died because you don’t use drugs for that kind of thing.

—Funsho Arogundade