Being One of the Few Men in K-pop Culture
It was four years ago when I started listening to K-pop music. I have actually been in touch with K-pop since I was around 8 or 9 because my sister always opened K-pop songs at home. Before getting into K-pop, I had a lot of stereotypes about it. However, as a dancer myself, I had a chance to try K-pop cover dance and I took it! In K-pop cover dance, we follow dance routines from the choreographies of K-pop songs accurately.
And to my surprise, I found out that there were a bunch of other K-pop focused dance crews like Orbit practicing there too. However, I wasn’t surprised at the minimal male involvement in the K-pop culture.
How I got into the K-pop Culture in Sydney
During my study abroad program at University of Sydney in Australia, I was able to learn about Orbit Dance Crew through the Korean Cultural Appreciation Society (KCAS). Orbit Dance Crew is a K-pop focused dance group which covers various choreographies of popular K-pop songs. I decided to join Orbit and entered auditions for the team in August. After they accepted me into the group, I started practicing together with them this month. We practice dance together around the ground area at International Convention Center (ICC Sydney). We use the glass wall of the building next door as our mirror for rehearsing the choreographies.![k-pop dancers with only two male dancers](https://ifsa-butler.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Post3-FeaturePhoto4.jpg-300x169.png)
Male involvement in the K-pop culture
Back in Myanmar, there was also more female involvement and acknowledgement in the K-pop culture. Again, when I went studying abroad in the US, it was the same scenario. There was a K-pop focused dance crew like Orbit in my college, and there I was also the only male. Observing other crews like us in US, I have again noticed that female involvement is dominant. So, when I came to Sydney, I was no longer surprised to see fewer males. In Orbit, there are only two male dancers including me. Other K-pop dance crews practicing at ICC also have very limited amount of male representatives in them.![a group of K-pop dancers mid dance move](https://ifsa-butler.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Post3-FeaturePhoto1-300x225.jpg)