It’s a K-move: These Indian dancers are tapping into people’s K-pop interests with their workshops

"I was hooked to K-pop for their dances and the versatility that came with it. Unfortunately, there weren't any K-pop classes in Mumbai. I felt there was a need for it given the growing interests," says Sasha Baptista, a 23-year-old dancer from Mumbai, who has been a K-pop enthusiast since 2017.

Baptista has been a K-pop instructor for ten months now; an activity she took up to cater to her own interests as well as of the young K-pop fans in the city who are eager to groove to K-pop songs and indulge in the immersive and energetic experience to the fullest.

Similarly, Moon Moon Kuki, a Bangalore-based dancer organised her first K-pop dance workshop this September, which was attended by at least 30 people, who got a chance to familiarise themselves with the fundamentals of K-pop dances and sync their moves to the tunes of South Korean rapper B.I's hit BTBT and other trending covers.

Both Baptista and Moon, devout fans of Korean entertainment and culture, believe there is a growing demand for K-pop classes or workshops among the teenagers and younger adults, who closely follow the Korean singers, pop artists and dramas.

Growing interests among the young

"The main motive behind conducting K-pop workshops is that my Instagram community wanted to learn from me one-on-one in class," says Moon, who is a self-taught dancer and discovered K-pop in 2019, when she watched the Bangtan Boys (BTS) perform on the television. Like many other young Indian K-poppers, Moon couldn't resist practicing the stunning moves through YouTube tutorials and exploring more Korean bands and artists, who now rule the pop-culture creative expression across the world.

It's not an understatement to say that K-pop is the heart and soul of the Hallyu wave in India and young K-poppers are its indefatigable driving force. In the last three decades, especially during and post-pandemic, there has been a rising appreciation of Korean pop culture and entertainment mainly among Indians in the age group of 16-30 years. The admiration, which is not merely restricted to entertainment, has inspired many young Indians to take serious interest in their performing talents and capabilities.

Recently, Sriya Lenka, an 18-year-old classical dancer and singer from Odisha became the first Indian to join the K-pop band, Blackswan, after clearing global auditions in 2021. Previously, in 2016, Priyanka Mazumdar from Assam's Guwahati emerged as the country's first K-pop star when she won the third place for vocals at the World K-pop Contest. A similar cohort of young dancers and singers in India regularly participate in all-India and regional K-pop contests organised by the Korean Cultural Centre of India (KCCI) in Delhi. According to Hwang Il-Yong, director of KCCI, since 2012, with every passing year, there has been a gradual rise in the number of people participating in the K-pop contest in Delhi.

For Baptista, K-pop was about renewing her long lost passion to dance and honing her skills further. "After I got into a dance group for the K-pop contest in 2018, it brought back my interest in dancing. Watching K-pop artists work so hard on singing and dancing is a motivation for me and the reason I have improved my dance skill," she says. Her YouTube channel for K-pop dance covers now attracts thousands of viewers, such as her video on ‘More and More' by Twice garnered over 50k views. This is also one of those factors, which gave impetus to her aim of becoming a K-pop dance instructor.

Given the high-spirited and highly competitive nature of these contests, young prodigies have taken encouragement from the online community of K-pop artists in India to brush up on their dancing and singing skills. Baptista and Moon cater to these young people, who are willing to learn, but fall short of professional guidance from experts.

Flexible choreography sessions

According to Moon, the demand for these sessions varies as per the location. In metro cities, there is a higher possibility that the number of attendees can extend up to 60, which mainly consists of people from the age group of 16 to 27 years. In Mumbai, Baptista has seen registrations from people between 14 and 20 years of age too. The fee ranges between Rs 350 and Rs 450 per session.

K-pop is originally an umbrella term for modern entertainment coming out of Seoul initiated by the ‘Seo Taiji and Boys' in 1992 and includes an integration of Korean music with other genres such as R&B, hip hop, rock, jazz and rap, among others. This is also why the choreographers usually blend in multiple styles, predominantly hip hop and jazz, during their class.

As someone who has been conducting workshops for about 10 months now, and one of the first digital content creators to do so, Baptista likes to expand the scope of her workshop to include latest K-pop original covers as well as blend in her own choreography to diversify the experience, whereas, Moon likes to focus on a lot of stretching and warm up exercises during her session.

"I teach the original choreography that normally fans learn through video but in class they get proper instruction on how to execute it which includes a lot of dance styles in one. Some of the songs I've thought about recently are BTBT, Run BTS," says Baptista.

Given that most of these workshops are followed by K-pop enthusiasts, the instructors have a great time bonding with the passionate and talented fellow community members. "The energy and vibe that come from those attending the workshops is amazing. I could feel the passion to learn something new as soon as I stepped in. It was really a smooth price since most of them followed K-pop choreographies closely, so they picked up very easily," observes Moon.

Also read: How young Indians are flexing their skills through K-pop dance and music covers