She's Got Moves—And A Bajillion Followers

Out in LA., a group of young dancers is reaching new levels of fame with addictive viral videos and boss-belch attitudes. Here, they model spring's best looks (on a rooftop Wiped, because why not?).

- Meredith Bryan

There are a couple of things to know before attending a hip-hop class in North Hollywood, which is to the dance world what Chelsea is to the art world or Atlanta is to rap. The first is that you’ll hear the same song—the same few bars of the same song—over and over until it bores so deeply into your gray matter that there are no thoughts left in your head, just Drake lyrics. The second is that it’s not a class—at least, not really. Here, dancers don’t practice their technique at the barre or perfect spins with hard-to-pronounce names. There’s not even a warm-up, just a choreographer slowly demonstrating 45 seconds’ worth of moves to a packed room of teens and early20somethings swaddled in a hangover-Sunday wardrobe of sweatshirts, track pants, and dad sneaks. When they finally start moving at full speed to the music about halfway through the class, bouncing and whipping around in uncanny unison, ripped abs flashing as they vamp for a videographer, it’s thrilling to watch. They look like they’ve been doing this routine their entire lives, not less than an hour.

This type of class was designed to train aspiring Beyoncé backup dancers to pick up choreography fast. But in the past few years, it has become the thing itself, with videos of sweaty young kids slaying moves in studios like the Millennium Dance Complex and the Playground L.A. racking up millions of views on YouTube and especially on Instagram, minting a new generation of stars who are now achieving the kind of multi-hyphenate stardom once considered impossible for a dancer whose name wasn’t Jennifer Lopez.