From Louth to Los Angeles: How a local dance group made it to the world stage
Drogheda dance group ‘Karma Dance Krew’ represented Ireland at the World of Dance Summit in Los Angeles in early July.
The group was launched in 2022 by Kelley McArdle.
She said: “I've always been a lover of the arts and been on stage for as long as I can remember. I taught in other schools before Covid, but afterwards I was kind of in limbo with my health and stuff like that, so I was kind of open to seeing where the wind would take me.
“How it started was Mr Gay Louth Peter Nugent asked me would I choreograph the St. Patrick's Day float for Gay Pride and it just spiraled from there.
“I was inundated with messages and people coming up to me asking for classes and I didn’t run any.”
Eventually after putting on an Easter camp Kelley decided to start up classes after popular demand.
The key part of Karma for Kelley is that she doesn’t ‘run it like a military’, Kelley believes dance classes are supposed to be fun and expressive and that’s the environment she creates for her students.
“While we do have to get strict when it comes to competitions, they're allowed to be themselves, they're allowed to be silly if they want to.
“It's a very fun environment and I'm trying to get as many opportunities as I possibly can for them, opportunities that I never got as a kid.
“I have a little breakers team and I bring some of my dancers all across Europe and now across the world, like going to LA to compete in battles and competitions.
“There's not a lot of places in Ireland that provide them opportunities.”
Karma qualified for the World of Dance Summit last May with a ‘Squid Game’ themed piece, it got Karma an ‘unheard of’ 60 points and Kelley believes it’s one of the most creative pieces that had been performed there.
“We decided then that we were going to go, but we were going to see how fundraising would work out for us first because it was going to cost us 50 grand to go there.
“So we worked on our fundraising as well as our routine since September and the journey of fundraising created bonds that you didn't understand until you did it.
“The bond that we have now and the trust we have in each other is far superior to the way it was last year.”
At LA’s World of Dance, Karma’s ‘Konvicts’ dance group competed in the championship round, Karma competed in a crew battle, three Karma members competed in 1v1 youth battles and Kelley competed in the 1v1 adult battles.
Kelley said while getting to LA has been an incredible achievement, it’s not what she’s most proud of since starting Karma.
“The proudest achievements that I can genuinely say I have are watching kids come in with no confidence and turning them into people who are confident, happy, talented and nurturing that talent to the point where they're confident to go out and battle adults who've got years on them.”
After making it to the World of Dance Summit, Kelley said it would be foolish to put a ceiling on what the group can achieve in the future as they look forward to more world championships this year.
To find out more about Karma, check out their Facebook here.