In step with destiny: The John Cole story

PATIENCE MUSA

When John Cole steps into a room, time seems to pause.

Not because he commands it—but because he understands it.

He walks with the rhythm of someone who has danced through fire, wept in silence, and risen with grace. A man who carries a storm in his chest and poetry in his spine.

John Cole is more than a dancer. He is a language. A movement. A metaphor for resilience wrapped in rhythm. Choreographer. Creative director. Musician. Educator. Visionary. The People’s Choreographer.

“Dance gave me more than movement,” he says, eyes lit with memory. “It gave me perspective. It shifted the way I see, feel, and interpret the world.” For Cole, movement is no longer just physical—it’s spiritual. A sacred script scrawled across the body. “Perception became the rhythm, and perspective the choreography. That, to me, is the greatest motion of all.”

Born in Sunningdale, raised by the fierce love of his grandmother after the loss of both parents, his story was never paved in gold. It was stitched in dust and dreams. He was a boy of motion—a natural athlete, sprinting through childhood, swimming, kicking, dribbling, swinging bats, shooting hoops. Life was sport, until it wasn’t. A knee injury ended the dream of national cricket. But where one dream fractured, another unfolded.

“I made a promise to myself—I would find something even greater.” And he did.

The streets became his classroom. Concrete his stage. Breakdancing his first tongue. And later, under the careful eyes of mentors like Beatrice and Edric Godzongere, he stepped into the textured worlds of salsa, ballroom, and business. Each style, each stage, each heartbreak—another stanza in the poem of becoming.

“I didn’t just want to dance to music—I wanted to become it,” he says. “That rare ability. That’s my superpower.”

His live-streamed concert John Cole PluggedIn, performed with his band Colenation, still echoes online—a moment where vulnerability met vision, where soul met structure. “I gave it my all. Raw. Real. Honest. Not just for performance, but as a gift to the people.” A love letter in motion.

And yet, for all the spotlight, his foundation remains humble. He’s choreographed over 500 weddings, earning the nickname “John Zero”—for his uncanny ability to create full wedding routines in mere days. But even in the whirlwind, he never repeats a story. “We create 500 unique dances. Not one done 500 times.”

His power lies not only in his motion, but in his mindset. “There are things you can control, and things you can’t. The magic is knowing the difference—and being like water. Fluid. Adaptable. Calm in chaos.” He pauses, and you get the sense he lives by those words like a mantra. “Whether a pond, river, cup, or kettle—water becomes the shape of what holds it. That’s how I try to move through life.”

But beneath the fluidity is a quiet ache. “The hardest feeling? Being invisible when you know you’re good.” A truth too many artists carry silently. But Cole doesn’t dwell in the pain—he transforms it. He lets it move through him. And in doing so, it moves others.

From directing music videos (Mufaro, Simuka, Tinofamba, Ghetto) to crafting concert experiences, Cole has become a cinematographer of feeling. Even when uncredited, the work pulses with his signature—vision, precision, and rhythm.

“I see the world through a lens now. Every frame, every beat, every movement tells a story.” His artistry lives in the in-between spaces—where emotion is too heavy for words, but just light enough for music.

And what of the industry that shaped him, and at times, tried to break him? “Dance is still one of the least funded art forms in Zimbabwe,” he says, without bitterness. “But we’ve come far, thanks to pioneers like Edric. Now, it’s about laying down new foundations. Dance and fitness should be in every school and university. It’s more than movement—it’s medicine.”

For John Cole, dance is resistance. It’s healing. It’s a call to purpose.

“I was saved by dance,” he says. “And now, I’m using it to save others.”

He wants to pass on more than choreography to the next generation. He wants to pass on wisdom. Structure. Business acumen. The kind that might have saved his generation time, money, and pain. “We lost too many opportunities simply because we didn’t know better. Now we do. And we must give better.”

And give he does. As a sought-after MC, motivational speaker, Zumba instructor, and cultural ambassador, Cole’s footsteps have touched the UK, Zambia, Zanzibar, South Africa—and now more than ever, Zimbabwe. His message is global, but his heartbeat is home.

He speaks of mentors with reverence—JP, Ammara, Cynthia Mare, Blaqs. He speaks of collaborations with joy—DJ Naida, Nutty O, Epixode. He speaks of Zimbabwe with love. “Zimbabwe isn’t just a place. It’s us. We are Zimbabwe. The key is to be yourself—fully, loudly, unapologetically.”

Ask him what’s next, and his answer comes without hesitation: “More music. More dance. More Zumba fitness. More MC-ing. More video. My next project will make me a global sensation.”

He grins, fire behind his calm. “Being John Cole is a full-time job. But I’ve done what I set out to do. I didn’t just survive—I became. I created something even I couldn’t imagine. A legacy. A movement. A name.”

And with every beat, every frame, every motion—John Cole reminds us that dance is more than a performance.

It’s a prayer.

It’s a purpose.

It’s poetry in motion.