Is there much couples dancing in K-pop?

[koganbot]

Posted this over on the Jukebox, where I underrated "Trouble Maker":

It took me a while to get HyunA as a dancer. What I first thought was sloppy now strikes me as having a nice flow. She's no BoA or Min (and here) when it comes to footwork or arm-and-shoulder coordination, but she's getting more at ease.

In "Trouble Maker"'s final two performances (Trouble Maker have wrapped up this round of promotions), HyunA was about 50 degrees warmer than JS.*

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

I don't know if there's much couples dancing in K-pop, there being so few co-ed acts. I'll have to ask my K-pop cohort. I know there's interaction with backup dancers, and in the singer-rapper one-offs, but I doubt there's much Astaire-Rogers lovey-dovey.

*Mat and Sabina's chemistry discussion is here and here, if you missed it.

Comments

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

"One-offs" basically sums it up. Every so often Kpop throws up some special stage pairing popular idols together, and then remember why they don't don't it so often when all of the fangirl/fanboy backlash hits.
Miss A and 2PM
Wonder Girls and 2PM in 2008
SNSD and 2PM in 2009
Wonder Girls and Big Bang, doing swing dance together at 3:35
SNSD and Shinee, but only for the first minute or so. It was a dance bridge between their promoted songs.
f(x)'s Victoria and part of Super Junior
Infinite and Rainbow
Dal Shabet and B1A4, which produced so much fan backlash they had to issue a message asking the feuding to stop.

The major exception to the backlash are the participants in the fake-dating show "We Got Married." Then the fans seem to eat it up.
f(x)'s Victoria and 2PM's Nickhun
2AM's Jokwon and Brown Eyed Girls's Gain were such a popular couple that they released a duet. Almost a year after their final episode of WGM, they did a cover of Troublemaker.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

I think they do it quite often on these special occasions precisely because fangirls scream in disgust / joy at the same time. That's why they try to re-create the TOP/Hyori spectacle all the time. Extending that to a promotional period or career is riskier and more difficult. Doesn't help that some of the idol co-ed group attempts have been so very terrible, of course. 'Trouble Maker' is a jam and one of the bigger hits of 2011 and I wouldn't be surprised if they put out another single as a unit in a year or so.

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

All of the Wonder Girls and Big Bang stages seemed to be well received, oddly enough. Then again, I haven't seen much backlash for any of the JYPEnt collaborations. WG/BB also happened at the start of the idol movement, and I remember that when i first got into Kpop that one of the things that set them apart from Jpop was the much higher amount of male/female idol interaction. SNSD doesn't have any performance collaborations with DBSK, but they did that series of commercials with romantic storylines.

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

For the longest time I was biased against Hyuna as a dancer because of this performance, and all of the lists she was getting voted up as "Best female dancer in Kpop" for. Hyuna's babyface was not helping at all, and I get the impression that she was trying a little too hard for this performance because at that point 4minute was still a fairly new group proving itself. It also didn't help that she was being put up against dance prodigy and former BoA backdancer(darker pink tank just to the right of BoA) Gahee and SNSD's Yuri, who has more classically smouldering sexy looks and is SNSD's second best dancer, which alone puts her far ahead of most girl idols.
In Bubble Pop! and Troublemaker, however, Hyuna appears much more at ease. She's clearly the one in control there, and makes her mugging for the camera look so natural and carefree, with Hyuna completely secure in her sexuality and having fun with it. She makes it look easy to look sexy in the Bubble Pop! MV, in particular, and as you know, I highly appreciate that ability.

Of course, BoA's still the queen of ease.
Miss A's Jia has good flow, as well.

[just-keep-on.livejournal.com]

At the expense of revealing that I'm totally out of the loop: Why is Hyunseung called "JS"?

There's something about Hyuna that turns me off - I haven't yet figured out what it is and it doesn't feel right to talk about her until I do. Hyunseung, though, I rather like, mostly because of his dancing (his lines~).

AG's already mentioned most of the co-ed couple performances between groups. I've been trying to remember if there were any on-stage co-ed performances in the early days, but I honestly can't remember. (Granted, I was limited to Music Bank back then.) Among co-ed groups, there was only one group who interaction with each other in the choreo, but I can't remember the name of the group now. They didn't last very long and I think their song was something like "Paparazzi" - I remember the opening of the performance started with a catwalk moment, with lots of "cameras" flashing and there was some well-placed hands and such.

[ETA] Aha! I knew Secret had worked with some of the boy groups during Shy Boy performances. They kept referencing other groups' choreo during the bridge, but actually had MBLAQ, Infinite and Teen Top (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhT65scD3I0) perform with them too :D

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

Damn, I knew I missed something. I even complained last year about how the boys were out-hamming the girls, who were just flouncing around. 4minute and MBLAQ doing Hairspray

Oh, and there was this SYTYD-style special that paired idols to do a dance together, but for the most part, they didn't actually dance with each other so much as coordinate next to each other.

[just-keep-on.livejournal.com]

SYTYD-style special
Really? I don't remember this o_o!

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

It was Star Couple Battle. Big waste of Gahee and Lee Joon. Chansung and Sulli did the Glee Umbrella/SITR mashup.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

This girl featuring on Huh Gak's ballad, whose rapping sounds quite a bit like Hyuna's, is credited with lyrics (together with the composers) on Trouble Maker (as well as this song). She's a member of Shinsadong Tiger's forthcoming girl group, whose lead single he WON'T produce (but instead his protege Rado will), and in an interview he pitched her as someone who could take control creatively as well.



Shinsadong is a clever guy. He talks up how they haven't spent years training together like other groups, how he's just let them get to explore on their own after signing with him, etc, getting a few good news articles out of it. I think his group can do well.

[koganbot]

What's her name, and the girl group's?

Good video: I got enough caught up in the story I almost forgot to listen for the rap.

The video does contain some stereotypes, e.g., women are an encumbrance when you're on the run. Actually, it works that stereotype well. Is love good for the criminal, or is it debilitating?

Are there any K-pop vids where women are hardened — or at least major — criminals? Qri and Eunjung get to be petty criminals in "Lovey-Dovey," but they're not the main deal in a criminal enterprise.

My ballad problem resurfaces with Huh Gak: I have trouble paying attention to the music.

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

Tasha's new vid might not count since I don't think she's a criminal.

Lee Hyori is an alien trucker that destroys stuff. Um.

BoA does a futuristic take on Smooth Criminal. Technically Jpop.

On that note, Jpop probably has several, but I don't know if you want links to those.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

She's LE, girl group is EXID.

For your request, I'm not sure. I can't think of that many videos where the artists are criminals anyway. There's violence, though.

[koganbot]

I can think of a few where the artist gets involved with criminals (Ga-In in "Irreversible," where the criminal wants to free her from her relationship with him, "Anyclub" where Lee Hyori is getting romanced by the evil organized-crime dude who wants to move in on the club where she works) but not where the artists are themselves the criminals. I assume it would be a hard sell in K-pop (or at least hard to get by network censorship). But then, I've not seen that many vids, and these days I'm realizing that the live TV performances are often more intriguing than the MVs.

[arbitrary-greay.livejournal.com]

FinKL's "Now,"(the Destiny's Child to Lee Hyori's Beyonce) released in 2000, involves them breaking into some guy's house and doing random stuff in it. It's also the defining "Girlgroup gone dark/mature/whatever" song in Kpop.
Wonder Girls did a remake in 2009 with more proper heist content in the MV, like a laser field sequence and it being suggested that they stole a necklace from the guy. Or something.

the live TV performances are often more intriguing than the MVs
Not the least of reasons of which includes performances of things that aren't in the MV. I don't know if you've ever watched After School's accompaniment showpieces:


"Let's Do It!" was the introduction to Bang!, while "Let's Step Up" was the introduction to Shampoo.

I also seriously can't figure out if BoA's Bad Drive is even a good or bad song because I'll never be able to mentally disassociate it from that amazing performance.

[askbask.livejournal.com]

May aim for abstraction, but the crime is fairly straightforward:



I'm not sure if I'm in on this. It's not really even 'cool' - there's no other level to this video than a girl who's pissed at ex-boyfriends and executes them one after another. Even with the pink blood it's needlessly violent, isn't it? Just the other day MBLAQ put out their "It's War" video with similar imagery.

[koganbot]

I forgot Lee Hyori's Anystar, where in the video Park Bom plays a shoplifter/juvenile delinquent/pauper to Hyori's princess (though I don't think shoplifting quite meets my criteria for being a major criminal enterprise).