On the large, rectangular stage in Bucknall Theater at the University of New Haven, the college dance club, Charger K-Pop Dance Crew (CKDC), practices their routine. The stomping of their feet and the echo of the upbeat music fill the space. The elegant arches of their arms, perfectly timed poses, and their clear spatial awareness never once come close to bumping into one another.
This dance club isn’t focused on ballet or hip-hop, but on the most recent craze of their generation: K-Pop. Whether it be groups like TWICE, NCT, Blackpink, or Stray Kids, there have been many in the last twenty years; the club members dedicate hours of their time to practice the dances unique to all of their songs.
The rise of dance clubs in schools and colleges around the K-Pop genre began in 2018 at Temple University. Today, hundreds of colleges have dedicated K-Pop clubs. CKDC maintains a strict training regimen. The twenty club members are expected to attend three hours of practice on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They practice in Bucknall Theater or in the adjacent class building.
Sophomore Brooke Hagen practices in baggy, casual clothes, not the costumes or makeup they plan to wear for the upcoming showcase. Her medium-length, curly, dirty-blonde hair sways as she dances. For the showcase performance at the end of April, she plans to dye the ends of her hair a striking purple and put it into two neat braids.
Hagen only recently fell in love with this prolific genre. “Back when I first started high school, I discovered this one group called LOONA. And I was like, ‘Oh! I really like that song!’” In her first year of college, CKDC caught her eye while walking around the annual involvement fair. She’d never danced before, but the idea of meeting others who shared her interest in K-Pop was enough to make her take that first step.
Brooke is the club’s treasurer. “The current E-Board is lovely to work with. We all are different, but we all work well together.” She was the first treasurer to get the club a working budget, as well as merchandise. “Without me, people would have to buy their costumes and any other club expenses out of pocket, and we’re all broke.”
Every year, the dance club does multiple different events around campus, with it all culminating in their showcase performance. “The mixes are determined through forms that are sent out to the entire body of the club, where they can submit their ideas for songs,” Brooke explained. “Showcase is entirely up to the general members of the club; E-board has no input, so we don’t really change around songs.”
Being within the K-Pop space has allowed her to make many good friends. “The people in the club are mainly the people I hang out with. My roommate this semester [was] in the club a year ago.” The fans at large tend to be just as sociable at live events, getting to concerts hours in advance just to meet other fans and trade bracelets or pictures of their favorites.
But not all of it is cute fan-calls and photocards. Online, the K-Pop fan space can be volatile, with many platforms like Reddit hosting over 400,000 members. Hagen knows this firsthand. “Twitter is evil. Stan culture is crazy. I don’t post; I just like things and occasionally repost. We say one wrong thing and people jump you. You say another thing and other people will jump you.”
The Korean culture around what celebrities can and can’t do also has become a point of interest for Western K-Pop fans, causing a shift in behavior. Hagen explains, “They’re more unhinged in America, because in Korea, the East Asian culture has such a ‘don’t swear,’ ‘don’t show your abs,’ ‘don’t show your nipples.’ There used to be a rule for the longest time that, when [guys] flip their shirt off, they could only show one nipple at a time. But in America, we don’t care, so they’ll show both nipples.” Western fans have also noticed a difference in beauty standards. The K-Pop industry perpetuates some unhealthy practices, such as heavily restricted eating. “Like, every other week there’s someone going ‘Oh my god, she looks really thin,’ like ‘someone feed her.’”
This year the film K-Pop Demon Hunters was a huge success, winning the Academy Award for the song Golden. And the genre has seen a surge of mainstream popularity. Where did this all come from? The K-Pop invasion didn’t happen by chance.
Millennials and Gen Z were first exposed to K-Pop artist Psy and his songs Gangnam Style and GENTLEMEN, which blew up online in the 2010’s, but the spread of Korean culture had been planned long before then. The first Korean idol group was Seo Taiji and Boys in the 1990’s.
“Before that, there were different Korean music genres, but Seo Taiji and Boys, they [mixed] music with the dancing, with three boys at the time, so it was very sensational in Korea,” explains Dr. Yeojin Kim, a communications professor at Central Connecticut State University and the co-director of the Asian-American, Asian, and Pacific Islander Center. “Before that, there was dancing music, but with just one boy or girl. Their dancing was more like the current, BTS kind of stuff.” Seo Taiji and Boys experimented with using more Western influences in their music, which was new for the time. While the older generation thought it wasn’t really Korean music, young people became enamoured.
K-Pop first spread to Japan and China, and would later spread even farther into Asia. This is considered the first Korean Wave. The government actively supported the export of Korean culture after it had initially been restricted, along with what celebrities were allowed to do with the language. This was heavily influenced by the growing popularity of Japanese Pop, or J-Pop, throughout East Asia, including the adoption of many parts of idol culture. J-Pop idols in the 2010’s, like the ever-popular virtual singer Hatsune Miku, were likely America’s first introduction to idol culture.
Social Media was key to the second Korean Wave, allowing people outside the Asian continent to be exposed to Korean culture for the first time. “Before that,” Dr. Kim continues, “not many people knew about Korea in the United States. By the spread of social media and the internet, they are exposed to Korean music, and they’re like ‘Oh yeah, this is kinda interesting.’” Since the restrictions on language were removed as well, many K-Pop songs were using English in their lyrics, allowing the English-speaking audience to feel like they can be a part of the music and sing along.
One of the major differences in the American and Korean entertainment industry is the idea of training. In America, the artists are found by talent companies, and they almost immediately start work on a debut album, but in Korea, the talent is molded. Dr. Kim explains, “In order to be popular, they should train in entertainment companies for a long time. Train their voice, their singing, and their dance, and people train how they can promote their image.” American artists begin professional vocal training at a young age. This training is reserved for those who can afford it, or already have connections in the industry like Taylor Swift. But it’s not impossible to become famous without it. Kurt Cobain was not formally trained and was known to not take vocal coaching seriously. He would go on to become the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the hit 90’s band Nirvana, known best for songs like Come As You Are and Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Dr. Kim remembers what it was like before K-Pop took over world culture: “It was only the desire for Korean artists to collaborate with American artists because the Korean artists were like ‘The American artists are very famous;’ they really admired them. But now, even the American artists have opened their minds to collaborate with Korean artists, and also value their music.” Now the cycle of inspiration has gone from Japan, to Korea, all the way across the Pacific Ocean to the United States, affecting not just the music scene, but all of the arts, including movies, with the Korean feature Parasite being the first non-English movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
The lights dim in Bucknall Theater, colorful lights fill the space, and the crowd cheers, many of them hyping up their friends and loved ones. There are students in their early twenties, others are family members, and grandparents. Many are fans of K-Pop themselves, but there are also plenty of spectators who don’t dabble in the genre. The thing that brings them all together? Their loyalty and love for those in the club, and their want to support them in the interest they’ve poured so much time and energy into. K-Pop ties people together through the community it cultivates, both locally and globally, touching people around the world and in the theater to their tune.
The five dancers move on the stage, posing single file, their silhouettes illuminated by the purple background lights. Hagen’s purple hair tips and bedazzled eyeshadow stand out amongst the other dancers as she waits for their cue, all of them wearing matching white shirts and denim pants. The crowd goes silent, except for a few standout screamers. In that moment, every pair of eyes was transfixed to the stage. So Bad by STAYC kicks off the bi-annual CKDC showcase performance. And the dance begins.
0 comments on “Dancing Into Your Heart: K-Pop’s Worldwide Phenomenon”