Shreya Lenka

Some Lesser Known Facts About Shreya Lenka

• Shreya Lenka is an Indian Kpop trainee who became famous for competing to become the fifth member of the South Korean girl band Blackswan; Blackswan gained popularity for being the first Kpop girl group with an African American person.

• Since childhood, Shreya had wanted to learn music. She failed to get a good music teacher because of her deep voice. So, her grandmother arranged a Hindustani classical music teacher for her; she trained under him twice a week. She learned western vocals, however, by watching online videos.

  

• Since kindergarten, Shreya has been training in dance, but she began taking her dancing lessons seriously in 2016. For a year and a half, she attained training in Odissi but quit it because lessons were expensive. Her first dance mentor was Madan Mohan Purty, the BoogieWoogie Hip Hop winner of 2009. After her father’s transfer to Jharsuguda, she learned dancing at the dance studio of Mendo Barla, a famed choreographer and fitness instructor. As of 2022, she is training in freestyle, hip-hop, and contemporary dance forms.

  

• Shreya has participated in many dance competitions and won them.

  

• Her parents were always supportive of her passion for dancing. Her parents said that Shreya was always a hard-working and focused girl. According to her parents, she used to go to dancing lessons after returning home from school at 2.30 pm and never returned before 9 pm. 

• In an interview, her mother said she (her mother) always wanted to pursue dancing, but she never received her father’s approval. She further said that she didn’t know if Shreya would become a Blackswan member, but she was happy to see her daughter follow her dream.

• When one of her friends began taking an interest in Kpop when one of her friends showed her the South Korean boyband Exo’s song ‘Growl.’ Shreya liked it and began searching for more artists like PSY, Rania, BTS, and Blackpink. She began copying their moves and wishing to become an idol herself. 

• In 2021, a friend told her to apply for online Kpop auditions. She began auditioning for many Kpop companies and followed many of them on social media. She watched numerous bloggers who talked about Kpop. 

• In 2021, she dropped out of school after clearing class 10 and took a year gap from her studies. During the one-year gap, she worked on her vocals, her English diction by listening to English songs, and her understanding of Korean. She even auditioned for many entertainment companies in South Korea. At the same time, she also opened her YouTube channel, Shreya Lenka Dance, where she posted her dance videos and song covers. 19.7K subscribers follow her on the channel.

• She auditioned for many companies but only faced rejections. During the first lockdown in India, she gave her first audition, for which she shot at the yoga studio where her aunt taught yoga as dance studios were closed. She failed to make it in the auditions but received positive reviews, which she kept in mind to move forward through the rejection she faced during all the other auditions. While talking about giving auditions in an interview, she said,
  

  With each audition, I tried to improve myself by monitoring the videos.”

•  She soon came across DR Music’s global auditions for the Kpop girl group Blackswan’s fifth member and applied. Blackswan is a South Korean girl group rebranded from DR Music’s old group ‘Rania.’ Blackswan debuted in October 2020 with three Rania members, Youngheun, Leia, and Hyeme, and two new members, Judy and Fatou.
  

  

  On November 9, 2020, controversy regarding Hyeme allegedly scamming a friend out of 50 million KRW (approximately US$44,800) surfaced. The next day, DR music announced that Hyeme was leaving the group because of the expiration of her contract and scamming allegations. On May 10, 2021, DR Music announced global auditions for the new member of Blackswan. 

• Following the global auditions announcements, she auditioned for it. For the first round of auditions, she sent song and dance videos. In July, she cracked the first round along with 22 other participants out of 4000 applicants across the world. While talking about it in an interview, she said,
  

  My name was announced after eighteen girls, so I thought I needed to practice night and day to reach the top spot. I had a difficult time searching for the right song. I shot a few and sent them to my teacher. Though he doesn’t listen to English songs or K-pop, he said one of my songs was good, so I trusted him and sent it to DR Music.”

• For the second round of auditions, she shot the video in public following protocols as the studios were closed due to partial lockdown. Shreya became one out of four people selected from shortlisted candidates in the round. Two of the candidates decided to quit, leaving Shreya Gabriela Dalcin from Brazil in the competition for the fifth member of Blackswan. In December 2021, Shreya departed for South Korea for a six-month training at DR Music.

• She devotes her time doing vocal training, yoga, learning Korean, dance practice, watching K-dramas, and researching dance and music.

• She had decided to enroll in class 11 when she went to South Korea as a Kpop trainee.

• She practices yoga regularly. Being a part of a family of yoga enthusiasts, she grew up doing yoga; yoga is a morning routine for the family. Her uncle and aunt are yoga teachers. Her uncle and aunt are yoga teachers. She has participated in many yoga competitions and won them. According to her,
  

  When I learned that yoga asanas could improve my body language and flexibility, I started practicing them more. I am more interested in the creative field, so when my family said that I could build a career in it, I began to put in more effort.”
  

  

• In her leisure time, she likes sketching and making mandala arts.

  

• If Shreya becomes a Blackswan member, she would be the third person to become a Kpop idol from India. The first is Sid, aka Siddhant Arora (from Uttar Pradesh), and the second is Priyanka Mazumdar (from Assam). Sid is a former member of the multi-national Z-Pop group, Z-Boys, and Priyanka is a member of Z-Girls, the female counterpart of Z-Boys. The two are from the Z POP, a talent hunt show that promotes Kpop in Asia.