All India K-Pop Contest 2023:  Kohima Regional Round held

KOHIMA — The highly anticipated All India K-Pop Contest 2023 Kohima Regional Round was finally held at The Heritage, Old DC Bungalow in Kohima on Thursday.

The All India K-Pop Contest is a competition held every year by the Korean Cultural Centre India (KCCI), which is the diplomatic mission of the Republic of Korea in India, together with regional organisers from cities across the country.

Competitions on singing, dancing and performances by various guest artistes enthralled the wave of fans that turned out at the event which was presented by LG.

This year, the K-Pop India Contest is being held across cities in the country in celebration of 50 years of diplomatic ties between Korea and India.

HallyuWave Nagaland hosted the Kohima Regional Round for the third consecutive time with Eastern Mirror as this year’s event media partner.

The event in Kohima city brought together talented performers which included artistes for both dance and vocal divisions.

Kicking off the event, damsels clad in traditional attire from Ledi Kro-u, who were the guest performers, enthralled the crowd with Naga folk songs.

The contestants headlined the exhibition with K-Pop dance and song covers.

Read: Countdown for All India K-Pop Contest 2023: Kohima regional round begins

Limatula Aier, the first contestant of the vocal category who was introduced by Jennifer Wotsa, the host of the event, mesmerised the crowd with the cover ‘Twenty-five Twenty-one’ by Jaurim.

The audience erupted into applause as Roslin Toppo performed a dance cover of ITZY’s Sneakers which was followed by 11-year-old singer Khriephrenuo Mere who sang the cover Hoody’s Blue.

Similarly, Neivisienuo Zuyie’s danced on Billlie’s GinyaMinga Yo (the strange world).

A ramp walk by cosplayers continued to enthrall the gathering.

Keneinuo Chielie, another contestant from the vocal category kept the clapping hands and stomping of feet busy with her cover IU’s Ah Puh.

H1ME, a dance cover group presented their performance on MAVE’s Pandora before vocalist Esther Toppo winded up the competition segment with her cover of Jisoo’s Flower only to leave the audience asking for more.

The winners would be announced by KCCI after evaluating and assessing the performances in both the categories.

The runners-up would be acknowledged, however, the winners of each dance and vocal will qualify to compete in the ultimate K-Pop India Contest scheduled to be held in Delhi.

The contest is being held with four rounds of competitions in India where the winners from the final round will win a trip to South Korea.

Special performance from Vidisenuo Belho, first runner-up of K-Pop India Contest 2020 in vocal category; random dance play; lantern festival; distribution of citations to participants; photo session and lucky draw were part of the four-hour long extravaganza.

(Our Correspondent)