Richmond-based GRVMNT busts a move on NBC’S World of Dance
Team members rise to the challenge of strutting their stuff outside their comfort zone, Stuart Derdeyn writes.
GRVMNT is an 11-member dance team coming out of Fresh Groove Productions in Richmond. Fresh Groove Productions specializes in teaching hip hop, street- and break-dancing skills to students ages five to 21. The studios’ teams regularly compete in events such as the World Hip Hop Dance Championships and, in the case of GRVMNT, appearing on Season 4 of NBC’S dance-off program World of Dance.
GRVMNT moved forward in the competition, which is executive produced by panel judge Jennifer Lopez and features Ne-yo and Derek Hough.
Michael Wu and Ben Eng, both 17, talked to Postmedia about getting on the show.
Q How did GRVMNT come together?
Aben Eng We’ve been dancing in quite close proximity at the same studio for some time, but World of Dance is the first time that this group of 11 dancers performed together. We have an 11-, 12- and 13-year-old and the rest of us are 17. Our team captain Emily is the oldest, so I guess she is the grandma.
Q How many routines did you have prepared for the audition process, which appears to be pretty gruelling?
A Michael Wu For the auditions, we had two different routines that we’d rehearsed. Before you audition, you perform your routine in front of mentors who critique your routines on what to, and what not to do. That was really helpful. But we heard that we’d made it; we had to change everything up and come up with entirely new routines.
Q Nobody in GRVMNT is new to competition. Is World of Dance next level?
A Ben Eng For sure, we’re always going to competitions. No matter how big or small, we’re there. But even if there were elements that we were quite familiar with, World of Dance is still outside of our comfort zone. It’s hard. Q I was surprised that GRVMNT only had a few tweets up when it got on World of Dance. I suppose that is because the group is so new?
A Michael Wu Well, we have an Instagram page and an email for the group, but no website. I guess it would be a good idea to get to work on that since we’re a lot more high profile now.
A Ben Eng Focusing on the competition is obviously the most important thing now because it’s not getting easier. Coming from
Canada, we’re feeling some extra pressure as we’re repping both our city and our country on the show. If everyone else is so good, that must mean that we are at that level, too, so we need to be at our absolute best.
Q This is more fun than going to school remotely, right?
A Michael Wu The thing is that, when we were doing the show, there were teachers there monitoring us to make sure that we were keeping up with our schoolwork during the filming. Nobody wasn’t in school.
A Ben Eng It’s a good thing that we did our work and didn’t fall behind and all. But it was kind of stressful juggling the two, to say the least.