India’s first K-pop idol? Meet Shreya Lenka, the Black Swan audition finalist who loves yoga, is learning Korean and beat 4,000 applicants for a shot at girl group fame
- Black Swan is already a multi-cultural group featuring Fatou, the first Senegalese K-pop singer, and Brazilian-Japanese Leia – but Hyeme quit in 2020 leaving a hole to fill
- Lenka, an 18-year-old Odisha-born dancer, studied traditional dance, Hindustani classical music and has already learned basic Korean and English to support her auditions
K-pop might be getting its first-ever Indian idol! Odisha-born, 18-year-old singer Shreya Lenka is one of just two finalists left in DR Music’s global auditions to find the fifth member of idol group Black Swan. Her final challenge now is to beat Brazil’s Gabriela Dalcin – the only person standing between her and making K-pop history.
Making its official debut in 2020, Black Swan is already well known for its foreign members Fatou, the first Senegalese-Belgian K-pop singer, and Brazilian-Japanese Leia. The other members are Young-heun and Judy, plus Hyeme, who left the group at the end of 2020.
Will Lenka make history and win a spot in the group? Here’s what we know about the rising star.
Though I am not perfect, I am improving each day
She didn’t get here without some serious hard work
Lenka has been dancing since she was in kindergarten but started training seriously at 12. She studied Odissi, an Indian classical dance that originated in the temples of Odisha and has been learning freestyle, hip-hop and contemporary dance to become “a versatile dancer”, she revealed in an interview with Talk Talk Korea.
She also trains her vocal skills with a Hindustani classical teacher and learns Western songs from tutorial videos online. “I dedicated maximum hours to work on my vocals and expand my vocal range,” she said. “My name was announced after eighteen girls (in the audition’s first round), so I thought I needed to practice night and day to reach the top spot.”
Her family supports her dream
According to Bebak Post, Lenka’s family has always been her support system. They sent her to Odissi class when she first wanted to dance, but she had to quit after a year and a half because of the family’s financial instability. However, after she joined the Black Swan’s audition programme and needed to train her voice, her grandmother looked for a classical music teacher for her.
“They took me under their wing, despite my family’s financial constraints,” she told Bebak Post.
She beat over 4,000 candidates to get there
