Ballad?

1 Day after the challenge was given, I am sat in the middle of one of the dance rooms at school. It is currently lunchtime and I am spending this chance to try and figure out how I am going to approach the dance to the song that I was assigned. Everyone else seemed to have received fairly easy songs to dance to:

DongBang: Warrior (B.A.P)

Hayashi Roh: MAMA (EXO)

Sim Hyun-Shik: Paradise (Infinite)

Akizuki Akira: Lucifer (SHINee)

Ra Chan-wook: Hello (SHINee)

Nam Youngjae: I'll be back (2PM)

Sim Kyu-Bong: If you do (GOT7)

Seol Young: Search for a dream: (Fanclub)

While everyone else seemed to get songs that already had a fast and energetic beat and vibe, I ended up slightly disappointed. I had been assigned Flower by Lee Seunghwan. It was a slow ballad, that wasn't made for dancing to. It meant that I would either have to reproduce the song in a different style. Or choreograph a dance to the song using a different style than what fans usually see Kpop trainees and idols perform.

While I was lost in my thoughts someone had managed to sneak up behind me. "What are you thinking about?" a girl asked directly into my ear. My heart stopped for a second and I jumped. "Geez, could you at least knock or make me aware before you do something like that?" I aks Kim So-Yeon, the person who had snuck up on me. "I tried to. I knocked 5 times and was yelling your name the whole time. You were so zoned out that you heard nothing" she told me.

"Oh, my bad then" I reply.

"So, what were you thinking about?" she asked me again.

"I've been asked to choreograph a dance for my next evaluation. But the issue is that the song I was given doesn't fit the dance style that we use" I tell her. "I came up with two solutions, but I'm not sure if they are good. I can either rework the song to fit the style or try to choreograph in a completely different style" I list my options and wait for her to digest the information.

"Honestly. I think you should try a different genre of dance then. Not only would it surprise the trainers, but it would show them that you are proficient in more than one type of dance. If it's a ballad, why not try contemporary or Ballet?" So-Yeon suggests. She is the only person that I know apart from my Aunt and uncle that is aware of my education before coming to Korea. She is like a sister to me, as such, after getting to know her I ended up telling her everything about my life in Italy. As a result, she knows that I have had a large amount of training in other forms of dance, like hip-hop, contemporary, ballet, jazz, ballroom, tap and more.

"That sounds like a decent idea. I'll have a think about it and see whether it might work" I tell her, now seriously considering her suggestion.

At the end of the day, I head back to JYPE. Instead of heading for the dorm, however, I head to the studio. I have decided on what I will do. I think it will be fun and impress the judges too.

I spent the next three hours in the studio. I started by bringing up the original song. I am going to keep the tempo of the song for a large portion and dance Ballet which I believe will surprise the judges, however for a small portion of the song I will speed it up and introduce a different beat and sound. This will allow me to perform the normal HipHop, modern style dance that we do usually. This will in turn show my versatility and ability in choreography and music production, which I ultimately will be able to carry me into the top end of the rankings for this challenge. I figured that DongBang would probably win this challenge, so I was aiming for the top 4. I figured that I may as well have fun at the same time, so added my own spin and changed some of the lyrics in the song. I wasn't too worried about the time frame we had for practising the choreography, but I wanted to get the music sorted as fast as possible so I could work on the choreography for as long as I could.

The next day I returned to school and showed So-Yeon the finished song. She seemed to like it and was interested to see what I would do with it. I told her that I would show her If it is received well. After school, I headed to the dorm to change, then directly to the dance practice room. I spent the last 4 hours of the day in their slowly figuring out choreography and recording it to see what would work and what wouldn't. Choreographing a song is a long and hard process as the dance is supposed to fit the song and help tell the story. I particularly wanted to use the choreography to tell a story alongside this song. This story would be of a man reminiscing on his first love which was years ago. It would tell us about how he met her and how he had loved her, but when they had to part how much it hurt, and how he could only silent love her and continue. I had changed some of the lyrics so they fit into this story. I could only hope that the judges would like it. From then on, I spent the next couple of weeks going to school and practising the choreography for the song up until performance day.

Once the day arrived, I felt ready to take the others on. Throughout the last couple of weeks, I had practised diligently. So much so, that I hadn't spoken to anyone but So-Yeon who would come and visit me during lunchtimes at school to watch my progress and add her opinion. The other thing that had surprised me was the amount of practice that Kyu-Bong was putting in. It was more than me. As I had school to attend and he didn't. He would spend every available minute practising his choreography. I was sure that he would do well this time, and I was happy for him as a result.

We all walked into our dressing rooms to get prepared. We would be staying in our rooms until it was time for us to perform so as not to spoil the performance for each other. Soon the judges entered the building and took their seats. It was impressive to see the judges that had come. JYP was in the centre and on either side were Jackson Wang from GOT7 and Sunmi from Wonder Girls. This was going to be a very interesting evaluation.