Their gift on Mandela Day to honour Tata Madiba was 67 hours of straight dancing. The crews started dancing at 05:00 on Thursday, 16 July in both Cape Town and Johannesburg. Their mission was to bring joy, unity and dance to South Africa for their 67 hours and encourage public and businesses to join them wherever they went.

“At one point on the Friday in Cape Town, We had about 20 people Jiving with us outside the parliament buildings. When the police asked us what we were doing we just said … ‘we’re protesting for more Joy!’ The look on their face was priceless and the one officer just joined in. It was beautiful,” says Sebastian Davies of No Danger Diaries, and one of the Madiba Jivers, of his most memorable moment.

On Saturday, 18 July (Mandela Day), the London team also joined in the dance movement encouraging people in Parliament Square underneath the Mandela Statue to learn the Madiba Jive and spread the magic.

“The Graveyard hours, 1-4am in the morning were the toughest,” said Grant Ross, another member of the dancing team. "If it wasn't for the live streaming on the website where we could see our counterparts dancing in the other cities, it would have been really really hard to make it through. In Joburg, we also had Moving Into Dance guys helping us through at their studio and their incredible passion for dance just kept us sailing through.”

Other highlights from the rest of the team included sunrise gumboot dances on the Nelson Mandela Bridge in Johannesburg and sunset drum circles in SeaPoint in cape town.

Now that their 67 hours has been completed, their mission is not over. The website MadibaJive.com has had more than 80 Jive submissions from people all over the world but they are still encouraging more to join in.

Daniel Cameron Becker, one of the founders of the Dance for Madiba campaign said, “We’ve had such an incredible response from people, organisations, schools and business that we’ve decided to run the campaign to the end of the month. This means people can still make a contribution to the Nelson Mandela Foundation and upload their video into the gallery to be part of the world’s greatest Madiba Jive.”

some of the submissions the Dance For Madiba campaign include: MIDM gumboot dance; Roy Stedman’s Jive; Canadian Tree Planters Jive; and DSG school. 

“We’re not scared to turn Mandela Day into Mandela Month” said Becker, “but we can only create the world’s greatest Madiba Jive with the support of our community and our country.”

To support the Dance For Madiba campaign, you have until the end of the month to submit your video into the gallery of Jives which will be used for the final video. To submit your video, visit www.madibajive.com before Thursday, 30 July.

For more information, click here. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook or via their YouTube channel.