I wanted to dance BTS’s “Black Swan” choreography ever since they debuted it in the United States on James Corden’s “Late Late Show” on Jan. 28.
After putting in my request at our beginner K-pop dance class, I finally had the opportunity to learn the last chorus during a Hawaii Dance Bomb class on Feb. 10. I was hoping we could get to the end of the song but unfortunately we couldn’t. I was hoping for a follow-up class, but that looks unlikely.
We took so much time to learn just a brief segment that we ran out of time to record the dance as a class as usual. Afterward I wanted to film a reaction to the video with one of my friends in the class, and when we finished we decided to give the dance one more try and see how much of it we could remember. It’s funny how so much is forgotten the minute we walk out the door, and after no more than a half hour we struggled to remember which parts came next.
? We tried a little bit of the last chorus at the end of this vid:
Anyway, because BTS performed the dance barefoot, I went barefoot the whole class—which was pretty typical every time I took a modern or contemporary dance class—and continued to dance it barefoot on the concrete outside.
I was afraid it might be painful but because it is more of a modern dance piece there were no jumps that might have caused pain. A few weeks ago I tried to learn Dawn’s “Money” by myself, and even on a wood floor it became painful because of all the jumps he does.
? BTS “Black Swan”
Just watching the dance ahead of time, I knew it would be painful in other ways, such as trying to match their wide and low stance. The flexing of their backs made me realize it was an area I had to work on because my back is too stiff to get the arch and flow of their swanlike stretches. I spent about three days trying to stretch and flex my back without the help of an exercise ball, which I really should get. I also kept up my plies and tendus, adding squats, just to prepare for a few minutes of dance! Even though classes are an hour long, about 15 minutes is spent in warmup and socializing, and much of the time we are walking through the moves. We are only dancing at 100 percent for about 10 to 15 minutes.
This dancer outlines differences between major Korean entertainment company dance styles. I favor sexy SM style and Big Hit (BTS) style, but this explains why I feel so tired and hurt so much every time after dancing BTS! Turn on subtitles.
Yet … a day after class my muscles were aching, from my core to back of my thighs. I mean, BTS puts a lot of rigor into the dance but I hadn’t felt pain after a dance class in a long time so I thought I had done enough prep. That just shows how grueling BTS choreography continues to be. I haven’t hurt for a long time after many of the other boy dances that call for a lot of powerful and rapid movements. When I look at the video of myself, I see I’m putting in a quarter of the energy BTS puts into their performances.
I know the millions-strong ARMY already respects and admires BTS, but if they tried their dances they would respect them even more.
HONOLULU — In my corner of the world, people seem to need three weeks to recover from the holiday season, as slowly the social calendar is beginning to fill up with events.
But K-pop never rests, and in my anguish over the terrible treatment of X1 and their disbandment and the excitement of Treasure being liberated from its prison at YG, I overlooked the Jan. 7 announcement that BTS will drop the next chapter of its “Map of the Soul” series on Feb. 21.
Pre-orders for “Map of the Soul: 7” is going on now, and two days later Big Hit Entertainment released a beautiful comeback trailer, “Interlude : Shadow,” featuring Suga (Min Yoongi). This song makes me feel really sad to think of all that he and BTS have been through to get where they are, only to find how lonely it is at the top.
Ah, it’s so good, but I’m glad I didn’t know this was going to be out ahead of time. I probably would have tried to record a reaction video and end up crying as soon as his singing kicked in.
So instead, check out this explainer from DKDKTV’s Danny Kim on the Jungian perspective that defines the “Map of the Soul,” and a music producer’s perspective on the song.
Wanted to try making a reaction video, and couldn’t think of a better place to start than with Lee Jin Hyuk’s solo debut song and music video, “I Like That.”
I teamed up with my friend, filmmaker Titus Chong, for the video, a 10-year K-pop fan vs. my year-and-a-half status. He sees the big picture of K-pop while I admit I tend to be a solo stan, picking and choosing just a handful of favorite groups and individuals.
For those watching the video, for whom K-pop is a foreign subject, this is Jin Hyuk’s story.
He debuted as a member of Up10tion in 2015, but the group had only moderate success, which led him and Kim Woo Seok to join the cast of the K-pop survival show, “ProduceX101” earlier this year. Although the show is intended to allow the public to “discover” and vote for new faces who would go on to form the group X1, the two among a handful of similarly already debuted individuals whose groups were only moderately successful. Perhaps unfair to newbie trainees, all the already debuted individuals did quite well on the show.
From the beginning of the show, I was a huge fan of newcomers Kim Yo Han from Oui Entertainment, and Song Hyeongjun from Starship Entertainment. Yo Han and Woo Seok quickly became consistent rivals for the Top 2 out of 101 spots.
I didn’t really notice Jin Hyuk until midway through the run, when he knew he had to make a move to get noticed. During one of the battles for position (rap, vocal, dance, X), he took on the difficult X-challenge of having to show skill in two areas. He picked rap and dance.
He expected stellar individuals would be joining his team. But he was wrong. The most talented individuals, who could choose their songs first, opted to play it safe and stick to one specialty. The ones on the bottom had no choice but were stuck with the difficult double-tasks that no one else wanted to risk. So Jin Hyuk was really stuck with the worst performers that he had to train in both rap and dance. At times it looked like he would lose his mind and there was no hope, but miraculously, he pulled it off, and it cemented his place in viewers (voters) hearts, which only continued as he was able to show more facets of his personality as the cameras began to focus on him.
? I made this mini video for Jin Hyuk after “ProduceX101″ended:
He even reached the No. 1 spot. So it came as quite a shock to everyone, when after consistent placement in the Top 3 for several weeks, during the finale he fell to 11th place and was eliminated. As I said in the video, it was such a shock that I cried for seven days, as did many others who said they couldn’t sleep.
Sleuthing fans who could not believe the finals results, started adding up the public vote numbers and found quite an anomaly, such that there is a continuing investigation into the allegation of rigged voting that ended up subbing in two to three members illegally because the public had to pay to cast their votes. You can read more about the scandal here.
In previous years, Jin Hyuk would have been the 11th member of the group, but the rule was changed this year to include the “X,” with the 11th spot reserved for the one with the X-factor, someone who didn’t make the top team but had accumulated the most votes through the show’s run. That person was Lee Eun Sang, but I actually believe that Eun Sang did make it to the Top 10 on his own (he was well within the Top 10 weekly during the show’s run), but was rigged to be the X because of his status as a promising newbie, which fit the show’s narrative best. Another top vote getter on looks alone was Kim Min Kyu, but he had little talent, so he might have been rigged to finish outside the X category as well because he didn’t show the same promise as Eun Sang. His votes were dropping toward the end of the show’s run, but I feel he had so much support in the beginning, he might have gotten more votes during the show’s run than Eun Sang.
If I had to guess who was added to the roster illegitimately, I think it’s Lee Han Gyul, Son Dong Pyo and Kang Min Hee. I mean, I adore Min Hee, but he was a longshot. He’s an awkward dancer and his vocals are not trendy, but he’s cute. I believe that if he hadn’t made X1, he might have been dropped from the Starship roster because there’s nothing K-pop trendy about him.
Hang Gyul was nowhere near Top 10, and because of his Western looks, he is more popular with international viewers than Koreans, so I find it hard to believe Korean voters, the only ones allowed to vote, would have voted him in. (Producers formed this group with the intention of enjoying international success.)
Same with Dong Pyo, whose diva antics would have rubbed Korean voters the wrong way. Even now, they call him out for being disrespectful to elders. Also, although trainers loved him from the start and the producers chose him to be their opening center, he never caught on with the public and consistently dropped in the rankings into the high teens over the run of the show. I find it hard to believe he would have suddenly become popular in the final vote.
? This video tells more of Jin Hyuk’s story during the “Produce” run:
I, for one, find it hard to believe Jin Hyuk did not make it into the final lineup of X1. I believe it was a case where producers did not want to see two members of Up10tion in the group because again, there likely would have been an outcry from fans who believe the show is about discovering new talent, not debuting those who had already performed for years in one group. If Jin Hyuk and another strong contender, Song Yu Vin, had made it into the lineup, it would have been skewed to include several members who had already debuted, such as Han Sung Woo and Cho Seung Youn.
Anyway, for me this MV represents a promising new beginning for Jin Hyuk. I think he did very well!
