First Lady of South Korea graces K-pop Grand Finale, India

Vivek Sharma, New Delhi, July 2018: Korean Cultural Centre India organized the Grand Finale round of 2018 Changwon K-POP World Festival: India at Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi. This year K-pop contest India got more exciting as First Lady of South Korea Ms Kim Jung Sook graced the grand finale. The competition was judged by famous Korean boy band Snuper. The group consisting of 6 boys-over-flowers, who are 22-25 years old, debuted in 2015. They also performed at the grand finale.

2018 Changwon K-POP World Festival India‘s final stage was bustling with the talents and the passion of Indian youth for Korean pop. In an exciting dance and vocal competition between 22 teams and solo performers Juchy from Mizoram won the first prize for vocal category, while ‘We Are Family Crew’ from Delhi took home the top prize in dance category.

The first runner-up in the vocal category was Sruthi Ramnarayan from Chennai and in the dance category the award went to 'Elixir Crew' from Mumbai. Jemimah Raphel from Bengaluru and 'Harmonic Boys' from Mizoram won the third prize in vocal and dance categories, respectively. The winners will now travel to South Korea for the K-Pop World Festival Final on October 5.

Kim Kum-pyoung, director of Korean Cultural Centre, India said that K-pop fans are growing tremendously in India. Seeing the growing Love for K-pop he wishes to bring BTS and Exo group to India. He also thanked Snuper group for their wonderful performance.

The grand finale opened with the performance of Staccato group, Delhi, who were the winners of vocal category last year which mesmerized the audience with their performances.

This year over 1,200 participants in 532 teams from all round India registered their performance videos, in which they sang in perfect Korean language and executed all dance moves that Korean pop stars do. Starting from Kolkata on 26th May, the preliminary regional rounds were held in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Patna, Bengaluru, Odisha, Hyderabad, Mizoram and Manipur between 16th to 30th June.

Fan Akruti from Delhi is following K-pop since she was 9 years old. She feels that K-pop has developed her personality, has made her more confident. She is a big fan of BTS, Girls generation. Meeting the BTS band is her dream. She was fascinated by the performance of Snuper band.  

On this occasion, Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Assistant Professor in University of Delhi said that this is a good example for India to take its Cultural Heritage to the world and these type of activities should be organized by India across the world.