If you are a fan of America's Got Talent, you may have recognized a group of young performers. Patch discovered that teens from several cities around the Bay Area including Dublin, San Ramon, Daly City, and Berkeley were invited to audition last May in San Francisco for the popular NBC show, America's Got Talent.
The teens ranging from ages 12 to 16 are part of a competitive dance team called "Funk Beyond Control" out of the Sunset Academy of Dance in San Francisco.
Rachel Solidum, Administrative Director, said the group was discovered during a performance in San Francisco in November 2011.
"We performed at the San Francisco Hip Hop Dance Festival in November," she said. "Talent scouts had attended the show and one scout backstage spoke to our director. We didn't think anything of it. Then a month before the auditions, we got an email inviting us to audition in San Francisco for the show."
Solidum says the dance team learned a new dance routine for the audition.
The team performed for the San Francisco audition, which aired at the beginning of the season and progressed to the Las Vegas leg of the auditions where they were eliminated.
Despite the elimination in Las Vegas, Solidum says it was "quite an experience for the kids."
"As we started progressing, it became more surreal," Solidum said. "It is one thing to go to auditions and then you start to progress. It is amazing."
America's Got Talent airs on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Check out the video of Funk Beyond Control's San Francisco audition and their Las Vegas audition from the NBC website.
Do you recognize any of these dancers? Give them a shout out in the comments section of the article.
