Izzy Odigie is a household name in Afrobeats, with acclaimed artists like Yemi Alade, Olamide, Wizkid and Burna Boy in her repertoire. Born in Brooklyn, New York, then raised between Edo State, Nigeria, and Maryland, US, she's currently settled in Lagos, Nigeria, and is riding high off the back of her first African dance tour. The PAP (Pan African Passport) tour visited five major cities: Lagos in Nigeria, Kampala in Uganda, Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, Nairobi in Kenya, and Johannesburg in South Africa. We caught up with the busy dancer to reflect on this huge career milestone and understand her visions for the future of dance. 

"There is so much potential for African music and dance, and the sky's the limit" 

Among the takeaways from her first African tour,  Izzy touches on the absurdity of passport privilege and navigating different creative tastes: "Travelling around the continent can be difficult depending on your passport. I experienced first-hand the privileges of being an American citizen. We were touring five different nations in one month — so you can imagine the logistical challenges. For example, my photographer, who has a Nigerian passport, was late to come because we had to sort out his visas for travelling around Africa. The South African visa would take a whole month for a Nigerian citizen. And to illustrate the bureaucratic hurdle, five days before we were supposed to travel to Tanzania, the cost of the e-visa increased from 50 USD to 350 USD for Nigerian citizens. Then even when I paid, it didn't come in time, so even when you have the money, there's no guarantee that it will be ready when you need it.

Then there's the issue of differential treatment; she continues, "In Uganda, going through customs, I would do my fingerprints, give them my forms and pass through easily with no questions asked. While I remember my photographer undergoing questioning about his activities in the country and his profession."

Another challenge for Izzy on tour related to creative taste: "Each country's creative taste was different. For example, finding photographers to capture the aesthetic you want can be difficult, so it was a case of adjusting to each country each week. I would like to take a videographer and photographer on my next tour to ensure consistency. But I enjoyed it and definitely want to make it an annual thing." 

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For Izzy, music and dance are inseparable, with the relationship being, as she terms it, "a spiritual connection". She continues, saying, "In college, I took a music class, and they said the first 'instrument' was the hands, i.e. clapping, and even that's dance. In terms of the connection between music and dance, you cannot separate the two, even in slow songs. You especially cannot separate African music from the dance aspect as the two are one and the same. But when it comes to pushing the culture, music is always at the forefront and the most respected. While dance is deemed important, it is seen as something on the side. Even as a profession, it's not as respected, and I'm not entirely sure why."

Elevating the status of dance is vital to Izzy, and she is keen for it to be seen in the same light as music. She reckons it lies in promoting dance academies and tours for that to happen: "To be honest, it wasn't too long ago that music was not taken seriously as a profession. Regardless of location, musicians are now taken more seriously. So we need to push the different avenues for dance to be taken seriously and seen as profitable. So I think, in that sense, social media is a great tool that needs to be utilised. Especially for African dancers without many other viable routes of gaining notability through competitions, commercials, TV and theatre as is the case in the West."

Nothing goes amiss for Izzy when it comes to musical inspiration, with her only caveat being "good music". Along with her home country of Nigeria, she takes from foreign sources like Angola and South Africa, modelling her dance moves on these diverse sounds. During her PAP tour, Izzy had the opportunity to showcase her knowledge and mastery of these different genres and accompanying dance styles on a continental stage. First, she learned about Pantsula in South Africa, a dance style heavy on leg work. Then she delved into Tanzanian Singeli music, which requires fast-paced movements. During her stop in Nairobi, she also became well-versed in dancing to Gengestone, a subgenre of Kenyan hip-hop that takes from dancehall and reggaeton. Speaking on these varied influences, she tells AMAKA, "Dancing is about interpretation which is why I love fusing different styles."

Dance functions as a language for Izzy, and she sees her job as a choreographer as learning as many languages, i.e., dances, as possible: "I want to have enough words and vocabulary to accurately interpret what I hear and represent the music. That's the way I see it. Dancing is about interpretation, which is why I love fusing different styles. I love to understand why people do a certain type of movement to the music they listen to. So I fuse and am open to anything as long as I think it's good." 

Izzy recounts the tragic passing of her dear friend Picture Kodak, who was electrocuted on the set of a music video shoot in 2020. The incident reinforced the importance of unions and centralised standards to ensure accountability: "My friend was electrocuted on the set of a music video shoot. On a regulated set, you are supposed to have an electrical team and a designated area for personal charging. But no one was held accountable for the incident.

The dance community raised money for her family as there's no such thing as insurance in Nigeria. But things like that wouldn't be necessary if it were a US union job. So there would be compensation for the family. And if the incident had happened in the US, you would be able to sue the company, and an individual would be held to account."

TRŸBE is Izzy's creative agency that started as a college dance team. After three years, she turned it into an agency to maintain the flexibility needed to work with different people worldwide without the pressure of contracts or commitment. 

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Detailing her hopes for TRŸBE, she says, "I think what it's doing is important and necessary. I don't want a situation where dancers are sucked dry of their talent and have no career longevity. For example, with the Screen Actors Guild in the US, every union gig you do with them, they automatically deduct a percentage that goes towards your retirement plan.

Ultimately, I want TRŸBE to be a means of protection and [an] information hub for dancers to understand the industry better. It would also inform dancers how much they should be charging for dance videos based on, for instance, the social media following they have.

My goal for TRŸBE, five years from now, is for it to be seen as a union. Dancers would get their base rate and things like performance and rehearsal fees, and dancers will be able to go to TRŸBE and check the rates against its centralised standards."

Given the disruption experienced on the part of the COVID-19 pandemic, Izzy is determined to make up for lost time with a jam-packed schedule planned for 2022 and beyond: "2022 is going to be the year of touring. I'm going to Europe soon, and in the process of confirming the dates for that. I definitely want to go back to Japan and then hopefully North America as I haven't been back home in a year". Season two of Izzy's dance tutorials is also currently in the making, so watch this space!

In terms of collaborations, Izzy particularly welcomes the prospect of working with Nigeria's Tiwa Savage on a creative level, having already performed with her in the past. She also tells us of her concert and choreography ideas for West African artists Fireboy, Oxlade and Burna Boy. Friends have also suggested she work with artists like Belgian rapper and musician Stromae, so she is open and excited to create those diverse, cross-cultural connections.

In 2019, Izzy held her first-ever dance tour in Asia, in Japan. The tour came about serendipitously. Still relaying a sense of disbelief, Izzy mentions that two years before the tour, she had met a Japanese woman who attended one of her Brooklyn classes and encouraged her to go to Japan: "We took a photo, and she tagged me in it on Instagram. Two years later, I did choreography to "Killing Them" by Burna Boy and Zlatan and wanted to go on tour with it. The costume was Japanese inspired, and I thought it would be fire to go on tour in Japan. So I messaged her to ask whether it would be possible and the next steps. Within a couple of days, she got back to me saying we're going to three cities, five classes, and three other gigs and club appearances. I taught two classes in Tokyo and did classes in Nagoya and Sapporo." 

She mentions her surprise as to the gravitas dance commands in Japan after going on a night out in Tokyo where club nights feature integrated dance segments with professional dancers: "I remember teaching my classes, and from children to grown adults, everyone was focused and taking the classes seriously. I'm talking from kids to grown adults. Many will also travel to different African countries to learn, and they take it very seriously. I think there's a market for African music and Afrobeats in Asia. I give it a couple of years to fully take root."

Izzy maintains conviction in African dance's growing popularity and success, seeing plentiful opportunities for African dancers to perform worldwide in the future. Nonetheless, she recognises that there is still work to be done: "There has to be that synergy between artists and dancers. I feel like music artists are responsible for uplifting their fellow dancers the further they get towards the other key players in the industry. There is no music without dance.

The responsibility also falls on the part of the dancers themselves. Dancers also need to take their craft seriously and invest in themselves as it's a business at the end of the day. If more people think like that, the people and the industry will sustain themselves. 

There is so much potential for African music and dance, and the sky's the limit. It's also a situation of more kids finding dance cool, especially in the US. Tik-Tokers and social media play a huge role. Now you see videos of kids in India and worldwide doing Afro-dance moves. People need to give African dance the same respect as they would Ballet, Jazz or Modern." 

Izzy is proud to be part of We The Culture, a programme to fund, support, and elevate Black art and creativity. She excitedly urges any Black creative seeking project funding to check them out and leaves budding artists with this golden nugget: "Just create. There are no rules. Create whatever you want. Just make sure it's intentional and for the benefit of the community as a whole".