Dance
Get to know K.O. – the Australian winner of Red Bull Dance Your Style 2022
Despite having taken his first class as a child, Koh Yamada says he still learns something new every day in dance.
Watching K.O. on stage at the Australian finals of Red Bull Dance Your Style, it’s hard not to feel awestruck. While the DJ works through rapid-fire hip-hop and electronic hits, K.O. – real name Koh Yamada – busts out gravity-defying moves without breaking a sweat. If he was delivering pre-rehearsed choreography, it would still be wildly impressive. But everything the Sydney-based talent is doing is freestyled, an on-the-spot reaction to whatever song is dropped in that moment. Yamada makes the incredible look easy. But when you ask him about it, he’s nothing but humble.
“The moves that I do, I obviously train them before, so they're in my muscle memory,” Yamada tells Red Bull. “But the way they come out is very spontaneous. I’ll watch back footage of myself dancing and sometimes it’s like, why did I even do that?”
Yamada is the Australian winner of Red Bull Dance Your Style 2022, a competition that’s all about improvisation. Entrants have no idea what song the DJ will play until the moment the needle drops. It’s a format that demands true dance talent. For Yamada, the key to freestyling is trusting your gut.
“I just listen to the music and whatever comes out will come out,” he says. “And I think the special part about it is that you do all this training in the studio or on the street and you build all your skills. But then once it comes to freestyling, you don't prepare anything. So it's all up to how much practice you've done, and then you'll see if your practice has been helping you through the freestyle.”
K.O. is a name that will already be familiar to many. He previously took out the top spot in Australia’s Red Bull Dance Your Style 2019 competition, before travelling to Paris to compete in the global finals. And Yamada is a longtime dancer who is widely respected in the scene.
His own path into dance began in childhood when his mum took him and his brother to tap classes. Yamada’s talent was immediate and obvious. Quickly, he started learning jazz as well, then “just kept adding” new styles year by year. By age 10, he was already learning to dance hip-hop. At 12 years old, he got into popping and breaking. When he was 14, he was chosen for his first professional dance gig, when he was recruited for a role by the Australian Ballet Company. At 15, he started teaching his own dance classes – something he still does to this day.
“I’ve just kept going since then, because it’s been a lot of fun,” Yamada laughs.
A big inspiration in his early days was Michael Jackson, whose concert DVDs Yamada’s mum would put on at home.
“I always loved listening to music and watching him dance,” Yamada remembers. “It proved to me, as a young kid, that you can become this sort of superhero [through dance].”
You can become this sort of superhero [through dance].
Today, Yamada mainly specialises in popping, though he’s mastered just about every style of street and classical dance there is. That ability to glide between styles – as well as the respect with which he taps into different subcultures – has made Yamada the dancer’s dancer.
Last year’s Red Bull Dance Your Style winner, Tony Oxybel, cited Yamada as his inspiration for entering the competition.
“I think it’s just the agility [that inspires] me, when it comes to Koh,” Oxybel told Red Bull last year. “He started at a very young age with classical style; lyrical, ballet, tap, that kind of stuff. Then he delved into street dance with hip-hop, breaking, locking, whatnot. Every single style he tries -- even voguing! -- he is just so true to the culture and so genuine when he gets to learn a new style. It really shows in the way he moves.
“The way he shows cultural respect and really makes it his home – it’s something you can only look up to.”
Yamada believes understanding the origins of a style is vital for performing it properly.
“I think it's important for me whenever I approach a new style, that it's not just about the moves. It's always about the history, the foundation, the culture – all of these things are really important. And knowing those things will definitely help your dancing as well, because you will know where it came from, who did this, and why they did that. And then you can approach that dance style through the lens of the creators or pioneers.”
You can approach that dance style through the lens of the creators or pioneers.
Whatever style he’s doing, Yamada loves the creativity that comes with dance.
“I feel like dance is the most versatile way of using the human body,” he says. “In dancing, we can take inspiration from literally anything, and translate it into movement. And I think it's an art form that anyone can do – it’s a very creative art form that I feel like is available to anyone. But there's such a wide range of things you can explore within the form.”
Now with the Australian title of Red Bull Dance Your Style 2022 winner under his belt, Yamada will spend the rest of the year teaching dance classes, competing in more street dance battles and working on a couple of video projects, before he jets off to Johannesburg to compete in the global Red Bull Dance Your Style finals in December. Every step of the way, he’ll still be looking for new moves, new styles and new approaches to master. For Yamada, the process of learning to be a better dancer never ends – even when you’re at the top of your game.
“Every day, I'll discover something new,” he says. “I'm always learning something new – it could be that I realise something is not working for me personally, so I'll have to readjust, or I might see something on the street that inspires me and I'll try and put that in [my dancing]. Every day, I'll find something.”