North American K-Pop Dance Crews Gain Notoriety With Cover Videos
From Arizona to Ottawa, North America is seeing a surge in K-pop dance crews with a bevy of fans in tow.
Nyx, a trio K-pop dance trio from Arizona State University, has racked up more than 15 million views for their dance videos on YouTube and more than 100,000 subscribers, according to a feature by their alma mater's newspaper, The State Press.
"We didn't think we were going anywhere, we didn't even have a group name, we just said, 'OK, we're doing this because we're here,'" said Baily Alka, one of the three dancers, along with Heather Vaughn and Isabel Hernandez, who shoots their dance cover videos on campus.
"We started off with less than 20,000 subscribers, and just a week ago, we hit 100,000. It's been a big journey, and we never expected it to get this far."
As a sign of their rising popularity, Nyx was invited as special guests to KCON in 2014, the annual K-pop convention where more than 40,000 fans converge to watch their favorite K-pop groups. Nyx held a panel and performed on a side-stage with their own set of fans.
"When we were at KCON, people would come up to us and be like 'Oh my god, I can't believe it!' They would take pictures with us, some people would start crying when they saw us, and we were just like, 'Ohhhhh OK,'" Alka said.
Meanwhile in Canada, the pioneering K-pop cover group Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team is also making waves, reports Ottawa Citizen.
Composed of 12 girls and 5 guys, the cover group spends many hours perfecting the dance moves they see on official music videos to create fantastic cover versions.
As Ottawa's first K-pop dance cover crew, Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team is hitting its stride despite a relatively smaller K-pop community. The group has more than 600 YouTube subscribers and more than 10,000 views for some of their videos.
"None of us thought we'd get where we are today," said Ottawa Hallyu Dance Team member Leila Siushansian. "We have our issues like everybody does. But I think it's the fact that we all love and care for each other so much that it keeps us together. And we love dancing so much."
