(for more information please visit: Zoey Zhou and UKDT)
Zoey (Ziyi) Zhou is a Senior majoring in Sociology and Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from Tianjin, China. She started dancing when she was in middle school. The first type of dance she came into contact with was jazz, and after getting into college, she started practicing by herself. Throughout the years of practicing dancing, she gradually moved from jazz to hip-hop dancing, so she is currently working on a hip-hop foundation and learning and exploring more types of dancing.
She is the president of the Unicorn Dance Cover Team (UKDT) and also one of the founders of the club. The club was founded in 2018 by Zoey and several other students who created a club focusing on K-pop dances and cover dances. Like all other cover dance creators, Zoey and Unicorn started buying equipment like cameras, however, the financial situation at that time for Unicorn was not ideal, so they could not afford anything else besides a camera. As the club grows larger with time, Unicorn applied for funding from the school, so they were able to purchase advanced equipment like advanced cameras, tripods, and some lighting equipment to produce better-quality cover videos.
Both Zoey and Unicorn spent a lot of time practicing, especially this semester as they are working hard to prepare for their first showcase. As for Zoey, she spends at least 2 hours per day practicing. And as a whole team, even though they only had 2 hours of weekly practice, many members will practice by themselves at Union underground when they are free.
Zoey has done many cover dances at college as a team leader. The song the team picks for cover dances are usually based on the willingness of the dance leader, but most of the time, they choose the most recent songs instead of the older ones to get more view counts and to attract more followers. The selection of members also depends on the dance leader, where there will be auditions inside UKDT, and the dance leader will be the only one to pick the members.
Besides cover videos, UKDT has also performed at several festivals, such as Moonlight’s showcase, CUSA and FACSS festivals, etc.
