Beaming with pride at 32nd spot in the world Ranking of World HIP Hop International dance (HHI) championship is the team of Kings United Dance Academy, Muscat consisting of Leando Reyner, Rishab Gupta, Renessa Walder, Rezwin Geordi, Anaida Shokrekhoda, Shrika Shaji who performed and garnered attention and performed without any deductions which in itself is considered noteworthy.
According to the students it was an unbelievable experience to be in Phoenix, Arizona with so many international teams competing.
“We learnt so much just being there. We would take opportunity to practice anywhere even the car park. Once a group of basketball players saw us and they invited us to play in their court. They would take a break and let us practice dance,” they said excitedly.
“Thinking of attempting such competition at the world level, was like a dream and reaching to the platform was like a dream come true,” said Nadeem al Balushi, the partner, Kings United Dance Academy, Muscat whose team went to take part in world HHI championship 2022 in August.
It was in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, the team submitted their application for taking part in the HHI held in USA. This was the time when lockdown started and they had to engage themselves in all constructive work which was possible remotely. The culture of remote working was possible during the lockdown and we were able to communicate with officials and share lot of credentials to become qualified. Thanks to the hard work, dedication and previous track of our Principal team of KINGS United India who appeared in the World championships 2012 and 2015.
“When Kings appeared for the first time, they could not register their presence but failure of the successful attempt created lot of buzz in the dancing industries and ABCD2 movie was filmed on our real life story,” said Tejas Gupta, the Director of Kings United Dance Academy, Muscat. Our partner Suresh Mukund’s character was played by actor Varun Dhavan in the film.
She added, “This movie gave us the courage and motivation to try again for the championships and in 2015, Team India appeared again and won Bronze for the country. This story is so inspiring that we have been thinking to live the same dream for our team from Oman.”
After three years of efforts, they managed to get green signal to appear in the World HIP HOP Championships 2022 and Royal Beast from Oman.
The team recollect, “This was just a beginning of our real hard work and struggle because getting the US visa was one of the most challenging part. We started practicing without thinking about Visa. The real challenge was to find a trainer who knows the HHI rules and regulations and then we found two times HHI participant Prashant Shinde from Kings INDIA team. He had appeared in both editions of HHI. We started clearing hurdles one by one and manage to get the trainer in Oman for entire month.”
The team put in 350 plus hours of rehearsals, which saw injuries, but with the experience of the trainers the team was able to avoid any deductions during the actual competition which is considered remarkable.
“We thank the parents and our dear students for sharing the same passion and trusting us immensely,” said Tejas adding, “We at the King United Dance School, Muscat having taught a pool of talent, have the best faculty of trainers who are not just sufficient in teaching but are also well trained and experienced to teach anybody and age is not a limitation.
Our certification courses in hip hop , contemporary and many others clubbed with internal exams enable the students to gain confidence and train them to begin self choreographing in different styles. The certified trainers have themselves achieved heights on the various championships within and outside of India that adds value to their vision.”
The training is bounded by rules and regulations of the HHI and as per their advices, they are expected to announce the plans for HHI in the Middle East region. To start with, HHI is planning to organise a rules and regulation workshop in Oman where team of experts will be coming from one of the HHI certified panel. There will be complete session where anyone can be part of this workshop and can gain the knowledge of HHI certification and can become the panel judge once qualified. After this, there will be Oman based HHI championships which will decide the selection of the next teams who would be taking part in world HHI championships in 2023 in USA.
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