Connecting West and East

Seoul Connections, the first K-pop dance club, presented two performances in October.

Jenna Wang ’20, the president of the club, recruited members at the club fair in September. Their first performance was a month later at the homecoming assembly on Oct. 12.

“I originally started the club because… I wanted to expose the West High community to K-pop which is a really big thing,” Wang said. She has been showing her love for K-pop through her YouTube channel which has 1,863 subscribers and more than 203,000 views total. This year, she wanted to be more active and decided to start the club.

At the assembly, about five minutes were given to perform and they performed choruses of three songs: “Shine” by Pentagon, “DDU-DU DDU-DU” by BlackPink and “Cherry Bomb” by NCT.

“Originally, everyone in our group went into the performance thinking, ‘No one is going to cheer’. We were all so nervous,” Wang said.

However, a lot of students cheered loudly for them when the music started. “The K-pop performance seemed to inform Korean culture itself,” said David Jang ’22 who was sitting at the stands. Seoul connections had introduced a new culture to West High. The next day, their performance video was posted on YouTube and has gotten more than 1,600 views. A lot of viewers left positive comments such as ‘You guys did great’ or ‘Amazing performance’.

“The first thing I thought was ‘I’m so proud’, because at the beginning when I thought of this club, I never thought we’d get such a good reaction from people and that they’d receive K-pop so well.” Wang said.

Two weeks later, the club had their second performance at the Fall Fun Fest. They added one more song “Gogo” by BTS and a couple of duets and solos to the previous performance.

“This club was like a way for everyone to get together and talk about [K-pop],” Selina Hua ’20, the vice president, said. They gathered every Sundays and practiced for two hours to prepare for the performance and share their interests. Three dance captains, Wang, Hua and Sophia Chen ’19, taught dances to the members.

These days, K-pop is rapidly spreading across states and continents. This August, BTS’s release of the new song “Idol” broke the record for the most views in the first 24 hours on YouTube. Within 24 hours, the video got more than 45 million views and it has more than 240 million views now. Its big difference with the western music is what attracts the fans and Seoul Connection members.

“Compared to other forms of music, although it’s pop music, it has a different field. It’s just completely different from western [music],” Hua said. “I’d say K-pop is the most diverse genre you could ever find. Because it contains hip-hop music, it contains cute music, and sad music, rap and everything.” Wang added.

Although K-pop singers have lots of fans there are some stereotypes against K-pop such as “They are just bunch of boy bands” or “They are just idolized people”.

“I also had the stereotype until I gave it a try. And the important thing about K-pop is to realize you don’t have to be Korean or Asian. Everyone can enjoy it. Race or gender or anything [doesn’t matter],” Wang said.

Seoul Connections has a lot of future performance plans to expose K-pop to a broader audience: Walk It Out, talent show, K-pop in public challenges, and some videos over the summer. They are welcoming new members who would like to join them in these future performances. Just contact Wang, Hua, Chen or any members of the club.

Bringing their love to K-pop to others is the goal of Seoul Connections. Hua said, “Just try it out. It’s not what you think it is…Don’t judge a book by its cover…It’s becoming popular for a reason.”