Nigerian Dancer Eyes World Record After Seven-Day Marathon

Lagos: On the seventh day of his solo dance marathon, Benjamin Daniel Gabriel shimmied and shuffled towards yet another world record in Nigeria, where over-the-top stunts for Guinness Book glory have become a national pastime.The 32-year-old dancer, popularly known as Ben Dancer, has set out to achieve a new record for the longest individual dance marathon. By Tuesday, Gabriel, a dancer with the musician Made Kuti, grandson of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, had danced non-stop for 176 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds. The current record of 127 hours was set by Indian dancer Srushti Sudhir Jagtap in 2023, when she was 16 years old. Gabriel is the latest in a long list of Nigerians who have either broken world records or attempted to.Days after he began his quest, nearly 51,000 people gathered at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos -- the site of Nigeria's official independence ceremony near Freedom Park where Gabriel was dancing -- to break the record for the largest attendance at a movie premiere. Gabriel's preparation for the record attempt began in 2022, with gym routines to build muscle, pain and endurance training, and sleep deprivation exercises to get him in shape.Gabriel applied three times to Guinness World Records before he was given the go-ahead for his bid in February. He said he started dancing at the age of 12 as a means of escaping peer pressure and family crisis and had to teach himself techniques and routines until he could be formally trained.During the marathon, he ate lightly and drank coconut water, while taking the permitted five minutes of rest for every continuous hour of activity, though he chose to accumulate the rest time and dance for several hours at a time before taking his break.