Meet 23-year-old student earning from online dance competitions
Thursday, March 04, 2021

Josue Gakwavu was born to dance. At 23, he has participated and won in several music dance competitions.

He started dancing in 2013, mostly for passion, when he joined a crew dubbed, "New Steppers”, for a year, before he went solo when the leader of the group left.

Since Gakwavu was still an amateur at dancing, he couldn't manage dancing on his own. Fortunately, a colleague, ‘Adelard Mugabe’ trained him in dubstep style. He is also specialized in hip hop and afro dances.

In 2014, he joined a drama team known as "Special blessing”, which not only groomed him in dancing but discipline as well.

"Our coach Miguel Karasanyi was really skilled in African traditional and contemporary dances that he taught us all the dance moves. With time, we all grew up and we went our separate ways, but the experience didn’t leave us the same,” he said.

The youngster has since taken part in a number of dance competitions. In September 2019, he won an online competition organised by Speen Rwanda. It attracted various dancers nationwide, who were required to dance to the song mentioned on the company’s Instagram platform. He emerged the winner, walking away with Rwf250, 000.

 In March 2020, he was among the five winners of "Ayaya challenge” by artiste JayPac.

All the winners were awarded money.

In August of the same year, Gakwavu was again among the ‘infinixhot9play’ dance challenge winners, who were rewarded with brand new smartphones after being tasked to dance to BruceMelodie’s new song.

Other competitions that he won include Art Rwanda UBUHANZI online challenges, the MTN dance challenge ‘Twizamukire’ on TikTok.

His dance journey, he shared, has boosted his confidence and opened doors to valuable friendships and finances.

"What keeps me going is the support from people. The few times I have stepped on stage, I have left the audience cheering and screaming in amazement,” he said.

He added that he is looking forward to turning his dancing passion to business and that his wish is to collaborate with music producers and artistes to feature in their videos and take his talent on another level.

He is currently pursuing Advanced Diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in IPRC Karongi.