Māori-Sāmoan dancer makes his presence felt with K-Pop supergroup

K-Pop is a whole other world, says model, choreographer and dancer Isaiah Reid.

The 24-year-old from Wellington has just returned from performing at Coachella in the Colorado Desert with K-Pop girl group Blackpink. They are “arguably the biggest group in the world right now,” says Reid.

He says being of Māori and Sāmoan heritage resonated with him on stage because there are so few Polynesian performers in those mainstream spaces.

Despite that, he appreciates there are more entering mainstream spaces like Coachella.

“I have been lucky enough, the jobs I’ve been on, we’ve been able to take quite a few Polynesians so there are about three of us for this Coachella job,” Reid says.

Blackpink themselves made history this year as the first-ever K-pop group to headline Coachella with a 125,000-strong live audience as well as 250 million online viewers.

The same trio who performed at Coachella, who are signed to the 3WJ+Boy talent agency based in Howick, will next fly to London in July to perform the Blackpink Encore tour at Hyde Park. They will also perform in Paris, New York, Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Macau which Reid describes as the “Las Vegas of China”.

Reid says he wants others at home to know, if they want to dance the same path he has, that they can and should go for it.

“Going out there and seeing the impact I can have on Pasifika kids, Māori kids, the youth in general - seeing what impact I can make within their lives to chase their dreams - it was that moment on the Coachella stage, where it was like, okay this is so much bigger than me.

“My biggest thing is to be the best older brother I can to my siblings,” Reid says.

As a middle child of five kids who all dance, he says growing up in the church and having a strong Christian faith, as well as very supportive parents are all ingredients in his success so far.

“No matter our culture and our background I feel like my parents instilled amazing values and morals into our lives, that no matter where I go, no matter who I am or what I become that's the forefront of who I am. I feel like it's the same for culture, I feel like Sāmoans and Māori’s have such amazing morals and values and they're taught great things. Just foundational knowledge growing up.

“No matter if you're getting into trouble, you're kind of always going to go back to those fundamentals of what your parents have taught you.”

Reid’s mum used to dance with Lance Savali, who worked with RnB singer Chris Brown, as well as Parris Goebel and her Royal Family dance group.

“She’s kind of a pioneer within the NZ dance community and she’s been dancing for a long time so I’ve always had a hip hop background and being from New Zealand that's kind of what our training is here, it’s very hip hop based,” Reid says.

Some of the earlier highlights of Reid’s career was dancing with the Royal Family, Mariah Carey and being on the crew of Netflix’s American fantasy drama Sweet Tooth.

The K-Pop world is so different, he says.

“People think the western world is where it’s at but the K-Pop industry is a whole other world. The fans, there’s more of them, they’re crazier and [you don’t need to know English] at all, which is crazy.”