DRC’s greatest dance pageant embodies the spirit of perseverance | In Footage

For Virginie Magumba, a 22-year-old skilled dancer from Goma, in japanese Congo, dancing is greater than only a profession.

“Dancing helps me liberate myself, handle my feelings, and never really feel on their own,” she mentioned. “All that I’ve grow to be I owe to dancing.”

Magumba received the prize for Greatest Congolese Dancer at this 12 months’s Goma dance pageant, the biggest dancing occasion within the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The annual pageant, which sees dancers from all around the world flock to Goma, has been held within the metropolis for the previous seven years regardless of persevering with assaults by insurgent teams in japanese DRC. The area has lengthy been overrun by greater than 120 armed teams looking for a share of its gold and different assets as they perform mass killings.

“This pageant constructed me as a dancer,” mentioned Magumba. “It confirmed me I might observe my desires.”

Magumba began dancing comparatively late. She watched dancers observe in her father’s sports activities membership for years, nevertheless it was not till she was 17, newly graduated from highschool and about to begin a level in humanitarian research, when she determined to provide it a go.

Over time, dancing turned a kind of remedy for her. It made her neglect household troubles and the violence within the area — and allowed her to maintain hope.

“We attempt to preserve hoping nevertheless it’s exhausting when nothing is enhancing. The pageant embodies this spirit of perseverance.”

Though her profession as a dancer provides her the uncommon alternative to journey outdoors the nation, she says she isn’t planning on leaving DRC.

“So many individuals left in recent times. However I constructed my profession right here, in my metropolis, in my neighborhood. There are solely two skilled feminine dancers in Goma. I inform myself, ‘If I go away, who’s going to point out the opposite ladies it’s doable?’”