Kivikye wins ‘Nagaland Dance Battle’ title

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Oct. 29 (EMN): Kivikye Chophy and Putulemla emerged as the winner and runner-up respectively in the online dance competition — ‘Nagaland Dance Battle’ (NDB) — organised by Musik-A in collaboration with Kripa Foundation on the theme “Get high on dance, not on drugs”. Held from September 5 to October 18, the event was sponsored by department of Social Welfare.

Semi-finalists of the competition were Johny Kithan, who also received the best choreography title and viewer’s choice award, and Tenjong Chungdok. Most promising dancer titles were given to Lasola Kips, Gwanilo Seb and Asen. Youngest dancers were Diya Das, Jentiren and Alona Assumi.

Director of Musik-A, Alobo Naga, said during the prize distribution ceremony on October 29 at Hotel Japfu that NDB, a solo dance competition, is the first of its kind where dancers irrespective of age, gender and dance forms came together online to compete for the title from their rooms during the pandemic. He informed that only bonafide citizens of Nagaland were eligible for this year’s competition.

He also informed that the online battle consisted of five rounds — online selection, round of 16, quarter, semi and final.

Altogether, 237 participants from across Nagaland and non-Nagas residing in Nagaland as well as from Nagas residing and studying outside Nagaland between the age 6 and 30 years were selected for the competition, he informed.

Alobo said that all the 237 dancers shared a placard with the message “Get high on dance, not on drugs” and uploaded across their social media platforms. He added that the organisers also shared creative awareness on drug abuse throughout the competition and the final dance battle choreography was held on the theme “Say no to drugs.”

The judges of the online dance competition were Jong, a backup dancer and choreographer of famous K-Pop groups like BTS, GOT7 etc. from South Korea as the celebrity judge, accompanied by Virieno Zakiesato, choreographer and creative movement artist, and Kokliba, dance instructor at Petros dance studio and alumni of Rajeev Goswami Company of Dance from Nagaland.

K Atoli Sema, director of Social welfare Department, informed that ‘Nasha Mukhy Bharat’ or addiction-free India is a campaign launched on August 15, 2020. She added that awareness programmes were supposed to be organised in institutions across Nagaland, but due to pandemic the department has been organising various programmes only through virtual mode.

“Since the ministry is likely to extend the lockdown, the department will carry out the campaign extensively as and when the situation improves,” she said. According to her, NDB is one such programme aimed at creating awareness on negative impact of substance abuse in the society and hoped that whoever watched the videos were not only entertained but also educated on addiction and its ill-effects.

She urged the participants to continue to spread the message through various platforms available and be the ambassadors and agents of change saying, “together win our battle against the menace of substance abuse”.
She further called upon the stakeholders to join in the efforts to make Nagaland and India addiction-free.

It was also informed that a workshop with Jong, a celebrity judge for the NDB, would be held next week with the top 20 contestants.