New Apparel Industry Management Student Is Renowned Celebrity Choreographer
We recently chatted with celebrity choreographer, costume designer, stylist, and model Kumari Suraj, who starts a degree program in Apparel Industry Management this week at FIDM Los Angeles.
Name: Kumari Lohar-Singh (aka Kumari Suraj)
Age: 34
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Previous Work: So You Think You Can Dance (USA) choreographer and costume designer; Dance Plus 3 (India) dancer, choreographer, and costume designer; choreographer and stylist for Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Mya; creative director for Dance Mogul Magazine; plus size model for the Tenth Magazine.
FIDM Major: Apparel Industry Management
FIDM Campus and Start Date: LA Campus, October 2018
Admissions Advisor: Susan Pope
How did your advisor help with the process? Susan believed in my hard work, entrance project, and accomplishments so much she pushed me in front of Mike Mirabella, Director of Admissions, and shared my work saying, “She has to be here”.
Tell us a bit about yourself. I am an artist and music, art, fashion, culture, nature, travel, and dance lover. I’ve lived and worked in over 30 different countries teaching, choreographing, modeling, judging dance competitions, and mentoring young artists across the world. I've been styling and designing costumes for film, television, and live stage shows for 10 years. I became internationally YouTube famous for being a dance pioneer and global ambassador of a niche disco dance style called Waacking. I was the first choreographer to reintroduce this style on national television through the hit FOX reality dance show, So You Think You Can Dance.
I love to explore and express my unique ethnic mixture through fashion, art, music, and dance. My parents are Punjabi Indian, West Indian, Crow/Cherokee Native American, and European. In 2009, I created my own fusion dance style called Bollywhack, which fuses pop, classical, folk, and other traditional movement and music from my South Asian (Indian) roots, with the 1970s disco style of whacking. This cross cultural connection is a seamless union of powerful arms, elegant hand gestures, exotic poses, and dramatic story telling facial expressions.
Bollywhack and my crew House of Suraj and I were semi-finalists on India's top-rated reality dance television show, Dance Plus Season 3, on Star Plus channel, exposing 1 billion people to this innovative style. I had the opportunity to design and style most of our outfits while competing on Dance Plus 3.
What are your proudest accomplishments so far? When I was 18, I told myself I wanted to travel the world learning about everyone’s cultures and I wanted to have my place in history as an innovator of dance. I’ve accomplished all of my dance goals. Anything I earn from here will be icing on the cake. My greatest accomplishment has been to make my family proud. Their respect and pride is my greatest badge of honor.
My other greatest accomplishment is the success of my students across the world. From Africa to Europe to Asia to Latin America to the North Pole, my students are their industry’s leading choreographers, studio owners, models, musicians, dancers, and artists in their respective countries. I’m so proud of my best students and their ever growing accomplishments. They truly are my babies.
What made FIDM right for you? FIDM has been my dream fashion school since I was 14 years old and in the back of my mind for 20 years. I’m ready to branch out into new uncharted industries as an artist. I’m ready to do something outside of dance. FIDM is going to teach me how to succeed in the fashion industry and help me figure out what I want to do through creative exploration.
What do you expect to learn at FIDM? I expect to expand my mind in new ways. I expect to maximize my potential as a student at FIDM exploring every possibility and creative avenue.
Categories: Apparel Industry Management
