Getty Image / Tyler Schank
The Red Bull ‘Dance Your Style’ world finals were held last weekend in Mumbai, India and after seeing the absolutely electric Street Dancing clips it struck me just how much the Street Dancing and Break Dancing world has been overshadowed by Raygun’s Paris Olympics performance. In fact, I’m not sure anyone in my life could name a single competitor in the Olympics breaking competition outside of Raygun and that’s unfortunate for the sport.
Moving on… Was I aware of the Red Bull ‘Dance Your Style’ world finals until this week? I was not. It wasn’t until I was scrolling through TikTok and came across a clip of MT Pop’s performance in the finals that I’d realized how electric this competition was. In fact, I was supposed to be at another Red Bull event across the glob (here in Florida) but had to bail on the Flugtag last minute because of a scheduling conflict.
In hindsight, I wish I would’ve known about the ‘Dance Your Style’ competition all along because these dudes are on a whole different level. It is a mixed dance style competition that combines all of the elements of street dancing into one and here is the final round between MT Pop and Rubix.
This shorter clip of MT Pop’s performance has blown up on TikTok with nearly 95 million views in just two days:
@redbulldance 💥 Hype was real! Crowd up & vibes all around! ⚡️ MT Pop is the winner of this year’s Red Bull Dance Your Style World Final! #redbulldanceyourstyle #redbulldance #streetdance #dance #dancer #freestyledance #india #mumbai #popping
Another clip is almost up to 15 million views. People cannot get enough of the Red Bull ‘Dance Your Style’ competition and honestly, I get it:
@redbulldance When it drops like this… gotta show out & make it count! 💯 @Rubix Criminalz #redbulldanceyourstyle #redbulldance #redbull #dance #givesyouwiiings #dancehall
The crowd is going NUTS. Where was that energy at the Paris Olympics? Was all of the hype really vacuumed out of the arena after Raygun stole the limelight with her performance that failed to secure a single point?
The structure of this competition is interesting. Red Bull says ‘win the crowd and you win it all’ while contestants have to navigate 3 rounds of nonstop ‘musicality & flow.’ That certainly seems like a better format than whatever the breakdancing format was at the Paris Olympics but at the same time it’s so subjective that the French contestant likely would’ve won the Olympics just from being the hometown favorite.