Red Bull Dance Your Style, a global street dance event series with a unique format, came to India for the first time ever this past weekend.

Sixteen dancers of various street dance styles were selected for the India Final after an all-digital qualifying round and competed in one-on-one battles to crown the first ever Red Bull Dance Your Style India Champion. They battled to unpredictable mainstream tracks ranging from recent global hits to classic beats with an online audience voting to select the winner of each round.

Hip hop dancer Deepak Shahi, aka NEPO, from Uttarakhand beat out three dancers on his way to the final, where he went up against New Delhi popper Manish Yadav, aka Manish Pop. The two battled over three rounds, at the end of which NEPO was crowned the winner with a majority of the votes going to him. He will now travel to Johannesburg in December (4th December 2021) to compete for a chance to represent the country in the top 16 on the World Final stage.

“I’m so excited to have won the first edition of Red Bull Dance Your Style India. I’m at a loss for words to express how I’m feeling. I’m very motivated now to put in twice the effort, work hard, and represent India at the World Final. It’s time to show the world what India has,” says NEPO.

In 2019, at the historic Grande Halle de La Villette in Paris, France hosted the first-ever Red Bull Dance Your Style World Final with over 4000 attendees and over 3.8M viewers around the world seeing Dutch dancer Shinshan best 39 dancers to ultimately become the first World Champion. Last year, Red Bull Dance Your Style went digital, with the first global street dance competition to be held entirely on TikTok as Briton Kieran Lai triumphed over 1,500 dancers from 47 countries in a six-week event.