'The World of Dance' winners The Kings say dancing wasn't even a career option when they started 20 years ago
After months of delivering one jaw-dropping performance after the other on the stage of the dance reality show 'The World of Dance', India's Mumbai-based dance group The Kings have won the title of kings of dance.
For their final performance on the state of 'The World of Dance', the group pulled out all stops with a breathtaking fight sequence with stunningly powerful dance moves. To say that the dance group simply impressed the three judges Jennifer Lopez, Ne-Yo and Derek Hough would be underselling the group considering how they left the stage to a standing ovation and a score of 100 in the round. The Kings won the prize money of $1 million for winning the dance competition. The Kings came on top by defeating Canadian contemporary dancer Briar Nolet, sisters Ellie and Ava, VPeepz, a hip-hop group from the Philippines, and Unity LA from Southern California.
You can watch their performance here:
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) spoke to the group that is celebrating in India right now. "Our parents are really happy and they are proud of their children. We are the first people of our country to achieve something like this," Suresh Mukund, who started the group roughly 20 years ago said and added, "I started this group and my boys were around 13-14-years-old."
He shared about the struggles that the group had to face when they started out almost two decades ago. "People didn't use mobile phones back then, so none of my dancers had mobile phones and it was difficult to communicate to each other getting all of the members together to rehearse, to fix a spot to rehearse was difficult. In addition to this, there were no reality shows, which means there was no real opportunity for us. We also didn't get support from our parents since they were really concerned about dance as a career — they didn’t think it was the right choice."
But Mukund told MEAWW that things turned around for the better when reality shows started taking off in India. "We started competing on national television in around 2009-2010 when reality shows were coming into the picture in India. So from there, we started getting recognition. After that, our parents were happy and were accepting of it."
The final performance can only be described as stunning. Mukund broke down the choreography process and said that they try to bring out their X-factor with each of their performance. "We have a particular pattern. When we choreograph and act, we first decide the different tricks that we can incorporate in our act, tricks that go with the concept. These have to be aggressive, so we have to plan it around the concept. But when we saw the other dancers, it was much different. They would choose a song and then plan the choreography around it, but that’s not the way we work. We have the 'wow' factor first, then we put the 'wow' factor in the music and that’s how we choreograph our act."
Within 24 hours of winning the global competition, Mukund is happy, and proud, of the feedback the group has received - something to look forward to. "We have been getting offers from all over the world for gigs, for choreography, for dance workshops. So things are gonna change for sure."
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