On Tuesday, May 30th, the Kinjaz made their debut on NBC’s World of Dance. From their humble beginnings as astounding individual choreographers, they came together in 2010 to form a super troupe of all males. Since then, they have made appearances on America’s Best Dance Crew and have even opened their own Kinjaz Dojo. After the heartbreak of coming in 2nd place at America’s Best Dance Crew, they are determined to win.
From billboards to commercials, World of Dance has actively been promoted for quite some time. It has been hyped up through all of social media as well as word of mouth throughout the dance community. From a dancer’s perspective, World of Dance is comparable to the NBA Championships, where the best of the best come to showcase their talent. The stakes are high and so is the level of talent. I mean, the prize is $1 million.
Their competition consists of other world renowned choreographers, such as; Ian Eastwood and the Young Lions, Jabbawockeez, and Chapkis Dance Family, just to name a few. The lineup is incredible. All of the acts set to appear on the show have proved themselves to be worthy competitors from winning other well-known competitions. The Kinjaz are no exception.
The more well-known members of the Kinjaz are Anthony Lee, Mike Song, Villn Lor, M-pact Lor, Darren Wong, Pat Cruz, Vinh Nguyen, Charles Nguyen, Bam Martin and Ben Chung. In the dance world, these names are world renowned for their unique choreography and approach to movement. Thus, forming a troupe of all stars. Since then, the brotherhood has grown with a significant amount of new members. However, the OG’s, if you will, remain the main choreographers for the set pieces.
A teaser trailer has been released showing the judges giving high remarks about the troupe’s piece to “High For This” by Ellie Goulding. The most distinct quality of the Kinjaz is their synchronicity. Much of their choreography is based on isolations. For those who aren’t dance term savvy, isolations are when you stop moving parts of your body and only move a certain part of your body. For example, standing still and only moving your head side to side would be considered an isolation. Putting isolations into choreography is incredibly tricky to perfect among a group of people because everyone interprets movement differently and to different extents. However, the Kinjaz were able to awe Grammy winner Ne-yo with this style of choreography.
Will the Kinjaz win it all? Or will they fall again to their competition? The world will see throughout this nail biting 10 episode series.
Kinjaz on stage at Vibe 2016
