Members of The Vixens Crew
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
If you are the scroll-videos on your screen type of a person, there is a 100% chance that a short reel by The Vixens Crew would have popped up on your screen. The all-girl seven member group, dancing either to desi hits such as ‘Sakkatagavle’, ‘Dwapara’, ‘Police Mama’ or to Western music like ‘Rockstar’ and ‘Swervin’ would have surely caught your eye. Whether it is a semi-classical dance style or pure hip-hop, the girls move in perfect synchronisation and ace every move.
Formed on January 15, 2023, The Vixens Crew features dancers Medha Naidu, Anushka Anand, Megha J, Bhavana V, Renee Ripal Kadakia, Ketaki Vaze and Vibha Vinod Shekhar. They started off as a college dance band called Onslaught and went viral with their dance reel ‘People’ by Libianca which gradually led them to seek a career as professional dancers.
Medha, one of the dancers also trained in Kathak, talks from Mumbai, amidst her dance rehearsals before a show. “We were all a part of a college dance group called Onslaught which was a Western dance group in our college (MCC, Bengaluru). When we graduated, we were still getting invited to perform outside of college. As we could not perform as Onslaught, we created The Vixens Crew. The group was supposed to be on for just a few performances and we started posting our dance reels on our virtual platforms just for fun. Nothing was serious, but we started getting more views, likes and the same craze spilled over to stage shows too.”
Medha also shares that their tiktok dance reel ‘People’ by Libianca was shot in the “basketball court of our college!”
She then explains why they chose the name ‘Vixens’, “it means a female fox and represents fierce and powerful, which also reflects us as dancers and hence we felt the name was apt for us.” It is mostly team work and Medha says that technology too, played a “key role in the making of The Vixens Crew. Tiktok caught on during the lockdown and it was a short format content that caught on; we started experimenting with dance forms and choreographies in this format.”
Yet, Medha says, “even if we are creating a short reel, the work process is equally intense as it includes rehearsals, shootings, camera, choreography and editing, which is quite demanding. We also make sure to practise together for at least for two hours every day.”
Bhavna, another dancer with the crew, says “We have been together for almost five years, since our college days, and have attended workshops, danced, disagreed, agreed and travelled together for shows. One thing I love about Vixens is the versatility as each of us has our style as a dancer and yet we come together as one dance team, which is what makes Vixens unique.”
Renee, another member adds: “The journey has been magical. We have come a long way and I have enjoyed every bit of it — each of us has grown as a dancer. Our bond today goes beyond dancing. Nothing can match this experience and bond.”
Their journey from campus dancers to content creators to international spotlight, says Medha “has been overwhelming. We started getting support from brands. Initially, we had no clue how to react to the fan craze and wondered what we should do. But, when elderly women approach us and say they watched our reels with their college-going daughters, it means so much to us. Since all of us love to dance, becoming professional dancers seemed an organic path for us. Dance is our passion and dream. Each of us takes turns choreographing a dance piece and we use our base training in a dance form, classical or Western that we have learnt, to create our work.”
The crew which performed at the YouTube Fan Fest 2024, RedBull Dance Your Style World Finals 2024, Absolute Pride Event 2024 and RCB Unbox Event 2024, say: “this is like a dream come true for us”.
Published – January 20, 2025 11:32 am IST
