Watkins Mill’s K-Pop group, NOVA, returned to the Fillmore in Silver Spring on Sunday, June 9 to compete in the annual MoCo’s Got Talent contest. NOVA placed in the top three county-wide.

MoCo’s Got Talent is an all-county contest where anyone from singers to dancers can express their talent for all of Montgomery County to see. NOVA, who primarily dances to K-Pop, performed in the finals after only making it to the first round last year. “To see how the girls have grown in their friendship, leadership skills, and being in a group is really exciting,” NOVA sponsor Karen Doerrler said.

Getting to the finals was not easy. They had daily after-school practices leading up to the competition and even practices during lunch in order to finalize their choreography. “We have been analyzing our videos in order to fix our mistakes and adding more facial expressions while keeping contact with the audience,” junior Rasanjali Illandara said.

While NOVA started as a group formed by students who all came together because of their love of K-pop, it has become more than just an afterschool activity. “We were all intrigued by the choreography by K-pop idols. So we wanted to see if we could do it ourselves… this is like a little family of ours,” junior Cristavel Guillen said.

The NOVA dance group worked very hard on their dances. “I’m so excited that we actually made it because this isn’t an act that has been done [at MoCo’s Got Talent] before, it’s really fun to get to be apart of the culture and make it more diverse,” junior Isabella Galvez said.

The NOVA members danced to an Instruction cover by Demi Lovato, DDU-DU DDU-DU by BLACKPINK, and DALLA DALLA by ITZY.

“I’m so happy that we are going to be the first K-pop group there,” Illandara added.