Rasheed Ibrahim: Dancing into Limelight

Dance

By Yinka Olatunbosun

Bariga, a suburb in Lagos, may have become synonymous with extreme poverty, but many talents had emerged from that community to change the narrative for the less-privileged. Some creatives have found their daily agonies as raw materials for their creative productions. Olamide, 9ice, Lil Kesh and Segun Adefila are some of the biggest names in popular culture that had emerged from Bariga.

For theatre, Adefila had done so much for grass-root talent development with his production company, Crown Troupe of Africa. With many international productions recorded for over two decades, Adefila had groomed some protégés for the arts. One of them is Rasheed Ibrahim, an award-winning dancer, choreographer and the artistic director, Ijolomo Dance Company.

He began dancing at the age of seven when Crown Troupe as a group was rehearsing in the compound where he grew up. “I had the privilege of watching most of there rehearsals, and in my little corner I would lock up myself in my mom’s room and begin to practice what I have watched them do while rehearsing,” he reminisces. “One day, while I was practising, I was so lost and didn’t notice that Segun Adefila was watching me and all of a sudden, I heard my name ‘Rasheed.’ I was shocked. I stopped immediately and all I could remember that day was that he asked, ‘Would you love dancing? Immediately, I said yes and that was how the journey started.”

As a child, he had encountered some works of Hubert Ogunde, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Bob Marley, Prof Wole Soyinka and how these artists had used their diverse art forms as social commentaries. He decided to do the same with dance.

“I use my dance in telling stories,” he continued. “I don’t just dance for dancing’s sake. In creating my dance, I always and won’t forget always that my main target audience are two namely the blind and the deaf. Since the blind cannot see but can hear, I use sounds and music in making the blind understand what my story is. For the deaf-who cannot hear but can see-I use my body language in making him or her understand what I’m going through at that particular moment on stage with my movements.”

Ibrahim believes strongly in the power of dance to tell meaningful stories just as acting and singing. Although he admitted that dance is yet to get the right kind of appreciation that it deserves, he is optimistic about the altitude that dance at a professional level is, will certainly be topped to meet global standards.

“With time, we will get the right recognition. We have our own Adedayo Liadi, Kaffy, Mr Victor Erebifa Phullu, Abel Utuedor, Segun Adefila, Mrs Yeside Dosumu Lawal and many more who deserves much more,” he said.

He took his first dance piece titled ‘Ayeraye’ to Corpse e Gestes and toured Yaoundé and Douala in Cameroon. He was the Assistant Choreographer and lead dancer at the 5th All Africa Music Award in Accra, Ghana. Recently, he won the first prize at the Covid-19 League Challenge Dance Competition.

Rasheed Ibrahim widely known as Ijolomo who has emerged as one of the four winners of Movement, Bariga Edition. A dance tour of Lagos State where expressive dance is the medium used to address vices against humanity in Lagos State and for Nigeria as in general sponsored by the TNN platform. Other international events where he had performed include the Maida International Dance Festival, AFRIMA concert, Trufesta International Dance Festival and Agogo Festival.