Videos of the international achievements of the two Indian teams are all over Facebook. The addition of Mumbai acts, with their rags-to-potential-riches stories, has brought more traction too. With dance being a big part of Indian culture, crews coming out of here have a dynamic and distinct style, reckons America's Got Talent executive producer Jason Raff. Now, eyeball-hungry international talent hunts seem to have noticed them.Ī 14-member group from Vasai, Kings United (also known as The Kings), won the top prize of $1 million in World Of Dance, another NBC show judged by singer-actor Jennifer Lopez. The 'Nalasopara dance phenomenon' developed separately from Dharavi's ( north central Mumbai) hip-hop movement but was fuelled by some of the same things - teenage fervour and the longing for an audience. It resulted in a wave of similar acts, which has since brought the neighbouring Mumbai areas of Mira-Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar and Naigaon into its flexible fold.Īpart from his Rohan & Group, a group named Fictitious, which later split into The Kings and V-Company, also achieved success in several dance-based reality programmes that sprang up post-2010. Moves from movies like You Got Served gained visibility in Rokade's choreography which won accolades in Boogie Woogie, the first dance reality show to air on Indian television about a decade ago. Local resident 37-year-old Rohan Rokade is credited with popularising dance styles from Western streets, after he discovered them in DVDs he collected during a US trip. Hip-hop has been thriving in these deep suburbs, places that some residents of the city don't even recognise as part of Mumbai.Ī few years ago, Nalasopara was nicknamed 'mini New York', equating it with the birthplace of b-boying in the United States. He was able to start a crew with them in 2012. He worked at various odd jobs, saving a few hours every day to practise moves like 'baby freeze' with his friends in assorted gardens and grounds, at least until they were chased away. Such a twist of fortune was unimaginable a decade ago when he fled rural Uttar Pradesh - where his family lived and his father ran a cycle repair shop - to struggle in Mumbai. I myself had never taken a flight," says the 27-year-old after rehearsals, as he perched on a spare tyre in a makeshift changing room. The 29 self-taught dancers are from modest circumstances but have an excess of " jigra ( Hindi for guts)", according to crew founder Om Prakash. The dancers say they very nearly ignored that email, believing it to be a scam at first. Last year, they had been finalists in an Indian dance competition, videos of which went viral and led the American producers to invite the group to Los Angeles for an audition. The group has entered the semi-finals of the television show, produced by Fremantle for US network NBC and won something known as the 'Golden Buzzer', which had sent them directly into the quarterfinal. These are members of V Unbeatable, an acrobatic hip-hop dance crew hailing from nearby Bhayandar, who are prepping for a performance in America's Got Talent at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
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