Midweek Arts:Kaduna to Korea… T-SOD is K-Pop Champions

THE Kaduna-based dance group, T-SOD, has emerged winners of the 4th edition of the yearly K-Pop Dance Competition organized by the Korean Cultural Centre, held two Saturdays ago in Abuja.

The winning dance group will go on to represent Nigeria at the grand-finale of the K-Pop competition in Changwon City, Republic of Korea, later in the year.

The K-Pop Dance Competition which is organized in various countries worldwide is based on the music and dance choreography of the pop culture of Korea through a system the Director of the Korean Cultural Centre, Kwon Yong-Ik, described as “efforts from effective and positive culture observation.”

Winners emerged from two categories: Adult and Students. While T-SOD won the Adult category with their performance of the song ‘Danger’ by Korean pop group ‘BTS’, K-Popians (Boys) Gwagwalada won the first prize in the Students Category with their chorographical dance rendition of the song ‘War’ also by Korean Pop group ‘BTS’.

Besides the entertainment vibes by the performing participants at the competition, other highlights and probably the peak of the event was the collaborative performance of the 2012 and 2013 winners, Elevatorz and Idez, with their electric performance of the Korean pop hit ‘Gangam Style’.   Awards and cash prizes were given to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize winners along with about 60 Samsung smart phones given to award recipients. The competition’s finalists were drawn from Kaduna, Delta, Edo, Lagos, Rivers and Enugu states.

Kwon Yong-Ik said, “We are happy that this year’s K-Pop competition was successful. The participants have all performed well. This shows that Nigerians are lovely and lively people and we hope to keep doing great things in this country.”