I am not a husband snatcher: Bev

Beverley Sibanda

“Do not try this at home” should be a sign bar managers put up when she takes to the stage. The way popular dancer Beverly Sibanda wiggles her body to rhumba and sungura music as well as pole dancing routines has left Harare talking. Her act is certainly something not just any flexible woman can do.

The movements can cause severe damage to the spinal cord if one attempts to copy her without the inborn talent. “People love what I do. I have had so many girls asking me to teach them to dance,” she says proudly. Sibanda, who lives with her sister in the upmarket suburb of Borrowdale, boasts about her go-easy personality.

“My sisters, right from my school days, know me as someone who is so free-spirited and they have accepted what I want to do and support me. My boyfriend also understands me and respects what I do. He knows it is just a job and he likes it. He is always giving me advice and our relationship is good,” the energetic beauty said in an exclusive interview.

The 21-year-old dancer, popularly known as Bev, started dancing at school as a cheer leader but in 2008 she realised that she needed to venture into the entertainment industry. Some men take her for a morally loose sex worker, while women believe she is just out there to snatch their husbands. But Bev is having none of it and demands respect.

“When I am on stage, some people tend to touch me or grab my breasts, which I hate. I don’t like being disturbed. People need to understand that I do what I do to entertain and not seduce men, I don’t want their men,” she said defiantly.

“I don’t drink alcohol and I am not a sex worker. I hate being touched when I am dancing. It just shows how men disrespect me because I am a woman. They know I cannot fight them.”

When Bev entered the fast-growing dancing girl scene, party goers could not help but compare her with Sandra Ndebele, the Bulawayo-based dancer who has carved a niche for herself in the music for her raunchy moves.The local media has reported bad blood between the two, but Bev has dismissed the claims. Zimbabwean