30 Days of NCT: Choreo Chat - My First and Last

NCT Dream - My First and Last

Choreographer: Tony Testa

Tony Testa is a famed American choreographer who has worked with big names in Western pop like Michael Jackson and Beyonce as well as big names in Kpop like SHINee and EXO. Testa was brought in as a performance director focused on dance at SM Entertainment, training dancers and creating some all-time iconic choreos. (EXO Tree, anyone?) He trained the members that would become NCT, as well as creating some of their early and memorable choreos.

Brace yourself for adorable lil Jisung. (Can you pick out the baby Neos?)

This is one of my favorite Dream choreos, but I am also a sucker for floor work and theatrical complexity. (That circle/flower thing on the floor gets me every time).

Overall, it's also a good snapshot of their dance style. Each sub-unit has its own specific dance style. I'd consider NCT Dream's style to be high-energy and explosive, reflective of their upbeat pop music. There's always a lot of complexity to their choreo and I think they are the tightest dance unit of the regular units. (As always, all of the Neos are great dancers working with difficult choreo!)

What makes this extra crazy is that the members here are 13 to 17.

13 to 17, y'all.

I've included the Dream Show tour practice from 2018 (two years later) just because it gives a clearer view of the choreo:

Performance:

Quote from NEO

My favorite Dream choreo. Tony needs to get back to doing choreos for the Neos!

I’d love to see him do a new choreo for them now that they are experienced adult pros. I think it would be amazing!

Quote from quarkie

I've never seen the 7Dream version of this song!

I also agree that Dream is the tightest unit when it comes to choreo. I feel like all of them would rank in the top half of the best dancers in NCT and because of that they're able to be more comfortable on stage and gives them better in performance chemistry which helps add to the high energy "young kids having fun" aspect of their concept.

Agreed. I also think the gaps are smaller across Dream from strongest to less so (I really hate saying weakest because this is really about the context here. NCT’s “weakest” is still a very good dancer.) The gaps are I think much wider in WayV and 127.

Quote from quarkie

I definitely feel that. I noticed during this comebacks this year that they're such a good team. And they're just gonna keep getting better. It's crazy to see how seasoned they've become as performers in these five years and then remember they're only in their extremely early 20s.

Yess!! I’ve noticed while pulling all this old stuff how much they’ve matured as performers..