“Your hips need to push outward while your solar plexus goes down. You do a slight jump in this movement,” a professional dance instructor says to a room of struggling students.
About 20 foreigners are gathered at 1Million Dance Studio in Seoul’s Seongdong district on a recent Sunday to learn the introductory choreography for the girl group Katseye’s track “Gameboy”.
The studio draws a diverse crowd of international visitors.
“I have loved dancing since I was young, but it is too expensive in the Netherlands, so I came to Korea,” says Mike, 24, who has come to learn the Korean language and K-pop dance. “Actually doing it is very difficult.”
Rachel, a German woman in her 20s, visited the studio with a friend. “I used to learn and dance to hip-hop music in a university club in Germany,” she says. “But I developed an interest in K-pop and came with a friend who is staying in Korea as an exchange student.”