Meet dance instructor teaching Nigerians K-Pop
Miracle Nelson is a young man, soft spoken with braided hair. He seems uneasy speaking, but on the dance floor, he is a different person: lively, bubbly and fun. On the dance floor, he becomes not only a dancer but an athlete.
Miracle is the dance instructor at the Korean Cultural Centre, Abuja, a new class with 25 members already. He is teaching them K-Pop, the Korean dance style that has set the world alight with its vibrant dancing and music.
“I have been into K-Pop for four years,” he said. “Aside dancing, there was a dream of becoming a singer. Everyone wanted to be Michael Jackson who sang and danced and this was what I found in K-Pop. To be a K-Pop artist you have to be a singer and a dancer and their costumes are fantastic.”
But with dancing, the romance has been longer. It started in 2010 when a young Miracle and his family participated in a popular TV dance show.
“I Started dancing in 2010 when my family participated in the ‘Maltina Dance All’ and afterwards I went to a dance school, Mobile Dance Academy in Jos, where I studied for two years and graduated with a diploma in dance.”
Armed with a certificate in dance and enough energy to burn, Miracle was uniquely poised for the next big thing that would come his way. And then four years ago he discovered K-Pop.
“A friend introduced me to K-Pop, he showed me a clip and asked if we would like to participate in the contest,” he said.
The contest he was referring to was the Korean Cultural Centreorganised K-Pop Competition in Abuja. The money was attractive enough and the passion was there, so Miracle and his friend went about setting up a group to contest.
He became the leader of the group and under his directions, they emerged runners up that year.
Miracle had found his calling so the second year, he lead his team to another runners up place on the podium. That year, they had the chance to go to Korea to represent Nigeria in the K-Pop world championship.
If that trip had materialised, Miracle would have missed it as he was participating in another dance programme for which he was under contract. But the trip didn’t materialise.
In 2016, he led his group to emerge the champions of the K-Pop competition in Nigeria, earning a berth to represent the country at the K-Pop world championship in Korea.
Now as a dance instructor, he is encouraged by the turn out for his class at the Korean Cultural Centre.
“I am encouraged by the turn up. The classes are free and the turn up has been impressive. We just started and we have 25 people registered,” he said.
And now he feels confident to own the dance style by infusing Nigerian elements into K-Pop. “What we are planning to do is to infuse our own ideas. And when we go and come back we are going to start K-Pop with Nigerian songs. That is what we have in mind,” the soft spoken dancer and fitness instructor said.
Whether he will succeed with this, only time will tell.