#rkmbcdc

The show will start with a solo stage from each of the three winners in the following order: Kim Chungha; Kim Jinhwan; Kim Yugyeom. They’ll each have 30 seconds to show off their dance skills to the public. They may choreograph it themselves or ask for help from one of the dance instructors at the dance studio. Keep in mind that this should be public friendly. Once they’re all done, the 10 contestants will gather around Yugyeom for a final group dance, which will follow the dance seen in this video, but cut as below:

( 0:00 - 0:23 ) Yugyeom center

( 0:24 - 0:42 ) Jinhwan center

( 2:53 - 3:13 ) Chungha center

The specific training dates will be during the weekends leading up to the shoe (21st, 22nd, 28th, 29th), but those involved may request to come in on other days for extra practices. The 10 contestants should arrive early on December 31st at the Gayo location by their own means.

Apart from this, the 10 contestants will also receive prize money for their efforts. The three winners (Chungha, Yugyeom, Jinhwan) will receive 500k won (around 429 dollars), while the others will receive 300k won (around 257 dollars).

For +2 DANCE you may write a 250+ words solo or a four-post thread with another contestant about your muse’s preparation for the special stage. For +2 DANCE OR CHARISMA, you may write a 250+ words solo about the day of the Gayo performance. Please tag all related posts with #rkmbcgayo.  You have until midnight EST at the end of Tuesday, December 31st, to make your posts. Threads may be continued after the deadline, but points will no longer be received. 

                                                     ━━━━━━━━━━    

she’s not born with it. that is for sure, from her experience at mgas, to revisiting video upon video of her performances, one could tell from one look that yuna had a long way to go when it came to dancing. but it didn’t negate the fact that -- despite her missteps and rigid movements -- she looked good. and that’s what mattered, right?

( at least that’s what yuna liked to think )

but opinions change and somehow needing something to stimulate her interests back into its right path, she had signed up for some dance classes. to fix the rigidity, to up her visual fluidity and somehow translate it practically into dance. 

it didn’t help that the ahjummas that lived next door would not let her live down the embarrassment that was getting eliminated so early on in the competition. she wanted to be remembered but not for losing. even for yuna, there were some limitations to negative press. and that had been hers. 

she had grown dim, and while she didn’t love the arts, didn’t feel any romanticized attachment to it -- she enjoyed them enough to want to still try. a huge sigh as she stares longingly at the advertisement playing right before another one of the choreography videos she watches, mbc’s flashy logo appearing right before the dance contest details and the fast-approaching deadline end the ad.

ugh. there was no choice, was there?

and while she didn’t love dancing, nor did she believe it was her god-given birthright to somehow be good at it -- with her birthday coming in just a few days, and the deadline for the dance contest falling close behind -- yuna had to figure out something, quick, before her time was up.

                                                  ━━━━━━━━━━      PRESS PLAY .

she scours the web for a choreography that benefitted her in two ways: befitting of her skills -- figuratively speaking -- and was aesthetically pleasing and powerful enough to make a mark. because if she wasn’t remembered, what was the point?

if yuna had a say in what she wanted to portray herself as -- she wanted it to be impactful, memorable and well-ingrained in the minds of her viewers. she wasn’t a youtuber by any means. if tiktok or vine counted -- she’d call herself more of an influencer, than anything else.

but with the few videos she’s put up, and the following from her other social media accounts, somehow the subscriber list had grown to a point that yuna knew to be anxious for whatever she put up next. as a young girl who made a point to heavily ignore the critics on her comment section, she was also still a young girl with a sensitivity streak that rivaled no other.

( which adds to the reason as to why her father feared for what to come )

but it’s something she can’t have weighing her down.

the moment she turns on that camera to perform the choreography she had spent days searching for ( and even a few more learning ) there’s no turning back.

would this make up for her blunder on the mgas? probably not.

but it was worth a try.

kyle hanagami’s choreographies are challenging. they require a skill that yuna does not have but she fesses up all of what she can manage in favor of star quality -- and that was just what kyle’s choreographies all held. a spunk of individuality and rebelliousness that yuna felt was so deeply embedded into her own being that even her father couldn’t help but agree that it had yuna written all over the steps the moment she had shown him the choreography she was going to cover.

relying on confidence alone was risky but she thinks she’s improved enough in the last six months to shake the nerves that pelter through until the very tip of her nerve-endings. it wasn’t like she couldn’t just edit out her mistakes, right?

( or would that be cheating? )

the beat is heavy in the dance room, secluded among the rest as some of her peers loom behind the phone camera to watch her from the screen ; making sure she stays in frame rather than running off the side. it’s happened before when she had tested the lighting ( and while she didn’t have any professional equipment, and she couldn’t really trust her friends to hold the phone steady enough -- this would have to do ) and found that she wasn’t even in frame for the first 30 seconds of the song ( a majority of the choreo considering how long it actually was: if she recalls it was barely a minute ) .

it’s a lot of attitude -- she realizes, as she goes through the motions in her head before she signals for the song to play. it’s a performance of not only her body, but her face and she feels it reflexively stiffen at the sound of ariana grande’s chorus fading to welcome miley cyrus’s verse.

it’s definitely more sharp moves than any of the other choreographies she had practiced before -- a lot more hitting the beat of the song, never a misstep -- something yuna realizes she does often if she feels herself quickening in pace rather than keeping in tempo.

and unlike exo’s namesake song, yuna had taken ages to make sure she didn’t mess up her own tempo with the song.  

she breathes in deeply right before the beat jumps and she’s sauntering forward ; fast movements ensue for sharper movements. so fast that she feels the whip of blonde locks against the nape of her neck ( a part of her regrets not tying her hair up ) as she spins and her arms are moving this way and that -- a languid motion sped up to match the rhythm of the song as she crouches then rises.

as fingers run through her hair ; she feels the smile finally break -- the breath in her lungs ripped out of her as she’s moving from one side of the frame to another. each step bringing another motion to ripple through her features. she grows in confidence as the lyrics finally hit its core -- a nail to the coffin, empowerment stemming from the very breadth of her hair to every smile she flashes at the camera. the haughtiness in her expression running through her fingertips as she moves in the way her girls’ hip hop teacher had taught them just a week ago -- sensual, but powerful.

it didn’t need to be sexy -- not for yuna, no. she just wanted it to be impactful.

memorable.

because wasn’t that the point of it all -- just as she turns one last time to face the camera, as the song fades, and her smile is dripping with confidence, chest heaving with the need to breathe -- 

( if she could help it ) yuna just wanted to be remembered for trying.

It was exhilarating to be able to explore one's passion and receive tremendous support from both the people she cared about and strangers thought. Other's opinions did not usually deter her from doing what she wants, it was a different kind of 'good' when she does receive a little 'tender lovin and care' with whatever it is she decides to do. So when her streaming audiences (within the gaming community) had taken so well with her first youtube dance video a week ago, Olivia stands by her word and creates a different channel for her to express this part of her life.

Instantly she gained half of her following from her loyal audience and some more from random strangers. A few who did mention a dance contest that she should 'totally join'. Olivia's instant response was a snort- in a rather, reflexive manner- but then eventually gave into the idea. Because why not, there was no harm in joining, it couldn't be any worst than her experience with the MGAs. She blames her competitive nature rather than the actual truth which was she really did enjoy her time in the MGAs. Despite her vehemence exterior against it.

Making up the choreography itself had not been that hard. She sought out help from one of her friends within the SNU dance society to add in a thought or two. Unlike her, he was a more experienced and talented dancer-however, he always did say that she simply had an inborn raw talent- so he was able to point out where she could execute a step differently or wait on another count. Thankful for the help, she gave him a shout out and free dinner later on.

after having posted two dance covers from convex, she decided that her entry for the dance contest should be something different. yes, it was girl group related. 

honestly, had it not been for the overwhelming attention from her boom boom cover, she probably wouldn’t be as determined to join this contest. she didn’t post it as early as some other coverists did, but she managed to at least post it in less than a week from when it was released. that was something, right? and had it not been for her recording it at the top of some mall parking lot hours before it opened, making awkward eye contact with each passing car that was searching for a place to put their car, she wouldn’t have even thought that she could be able to do this and get attention from it. 

it was cold. it was awkward. but in the end, if she was able to get attention on the internet from that little bit of suffering, who says she wouldn’t be able to do this? 

instead of going outside to record her covers, however, she decides to stay in the comfort of her home while her parents were not around. she didn’t tell anyone she was thinking of joining this. it was frankly because she didn’t think she needed to. she didn’t care whether her parents had anything to say against it or whether her friends would give her advice on what to do for her own performance. she thought about telling daniel, but she thought against it. the last time he didn’t tell her something “huge”, he became a trainee as a result of it all. (sure there were a few bumps in the road, but she can still beg him to get her a signed convex album at the end of the day so…)

though her parents weren’t home, she was in a bit of a time crunch. she made sure that the guest room was clean enough to be a good recording space for her. since she wasn’t boujee on her own, she had to settle for some natural lights as well as the lighting that the room provided her with. perhaps one day she would be able to afford box lights, but today was, unfortunately, not the move. 

she’s lucky that the time limit was just 90 seconds because that meant she could learn a choreography quickly in order to turn in the video right before the deadline. though she’s a natural procrastinator (who isn’t these days?), she wants to make sure she gets a good shot. if anyone does this song before she does as an entry, she knows that she’ll probably have a less likely chance of winning. she did not want to let this cuteass look go to waste by being compared to someone else. that’d be a nightmare. 

not only did she not have much to learn for the video, but she also actually had time to teach herself the moves rather than put it off and stress about it on the due date. since csats are over and she’s already turned in her apps, all she really needed to do now was wait to see what her future will become. if she were to go on her application portal for seoul national again, she was sure she would still see the familiar “waitlisted” on her application. so rather than stressing over that, she went back to dancing more often in order to get the negative vibes away. 

that’s why she’s here. maybe unlike that dumb school, she could be able to get an answer that determines where her life will go. whether it be the same old life she has been living before or one that was no different from her daydreams, at least mbc could let her know where she’d go. 

like her past few covers, she records with the same dslr camera she’s used before on the same tripod that has been there since her adore u cover. however, like boom boom, she was doing this cover on her own. she wasn’t a huge fan of mamamoo moomooma, but she wouldn’t deny that “hip” lip was a goodass song. it carried the badass energy that mina basically wanted to become, not to mention the choreography was made by the lia kim and minny park. that’s already a win in her book since she was basically in love with their dances. 

with the help of garageband, she was able to make a good audio for the parts of the choreography she wanted to cover for the video. it’s for moves that she thought looked impressive enough for her to be able to impress not only the audience but herself as she dances to them. whenever she does cool moves, she feels a little more badass than she already was prior. though she wished the dance break in the bridge could’ve gone a little harder, she knew that she was going to have fun with doing the rap part in the bridge. her lip-syncing should be enough to fool people into thinking she looks like she could rap. 

though it’s more than one take, she still tries her best in dancing as if she was THE main bitch on the block. that was the main message of the song, anyway. even if other people are against what you do, you should still continue being the person you are. you should own that. FUCK THE HATERS! the fact that she was dancing to a song about that made her so excited.

her song choice reflects that - jun hyoseong’s into you. it’s a track that’s sexy but still cool and still has power. there’s a lot of other songs she could have chosen to cover, but this is the one that suits yein’s own personal style best. it’s fun, but still powerful, something that too many sexy dances are lacking in, in yein’s not so humble opinion.

she’s tucked away in a free studio at soundbox. it’s one of her days off, no make up to paint on people’s faces or dance classes to teach, so yein is able to focus on getting the perfect take. she’s wearing a chic outfit that she thinks is the perfect blend of yein and hyoseong’s stage outfits. she’s always been partial to blazers, after all. she’s not starting until 30 seconds in, so she uses that time at the start to flip around her newly dusty blonde hair and settle into the performance. she’s still getting used to her new hair colour, which today is half tied up. hopefully it will help her stand out.

yein does a few takes, stopping between them to examine the video footage and clean up her lines. it’s the eighth take that she’s finally happy with. yein makes her way back to her apartment and edits the video just a little bit, trimming off the dead seconds at the start and end of the final take. her thumbnail is simply into you in a pretty, cursive font, with mbc dance cover contest written in the top right corner, all framing a cute picture of yein throwing up some peace signs that she posed for at the start of filming. lastly, she writes her video’s description;

hello! here’s my entry for mbc’s dance cover contest. i hope you all enjoyed, sorry it’s been a while since i last posted a dance cover. 

xoxo yein

Yoona’s family were still touchy over recent events, but more importantly, the fact that she didn’t get signed and her cousin did. She didn’t blame Moonbok nor did she harbour any harsh feelings towards him, unlike her father. He was still her Bokkie and her favourite cousin and she was so proud of how far he had come. Im Yoona would always be Moonbok’s number one supporter. Her time would come. It had taken her a lot of sleepless nights full of tears and negative thoughts before she realised that it just was not her time and she was thankful. She could work on herself more and wait until next time.

Her father, however, had other plans and when he had heard about a dance contest, he had immediately sent Yoona the information, telling her to enter. She didn’t expect to get anywhere with her entry, she just entered to please her father. The one thing you didn’t want to do was disappoint Yoona’s father.

She had never figured out her style of dancing nor had she attended many lessons. The dancing she did was either self-taught, learned from covers, or taught during rehearsals. She had never done any serious dance competitions and she knew she was competing against professionally trained dancers. If she didn’t get her hopes up then she wouldn’t be so upset when she loses, right?

She had spent some time at home browsing YouTube and trying to figure out what cover she wanted to do. It had taken some time (and a coin toss or two) before she decided upon a song and dance. It wasn’t a complicated choreography which meant that she could focus on nailing the moves and facial expressions needed. Yoona set about learning the dance moves.

When she had a break during rehearsals a few days later, Im Yoona found a quiet spot with sufficient space and lighting to film in. She had brought her camera and tripod with her and quickly set it up. She didn’t have a lot of time, so she wanted to get it right. She had decided to try different outfits to see what worked best for the cover and what didn’t look good on camera. She needed to change for her musical, so it was perfect. She would record multiple versions of the dance and edit it later.

The song was fun and catchy and something that she enjoyed which made dancing to it even easier. Once she was sure she was ready she started the recording and music and began dancing. The dance was cute for all but ten seconds and then it turned fierce. The feel of the music and dance reminded her of a villain so that’s what she pretended to be. Who said one couldn’t roleplay?

The movements were quick and precise mixed with slow and soft. The dance was about attitude, which was something she wasn’t sure she had. Still, she tried to pretend that she had the right attitude for the dance. Throughout the dance, she reminded herself of the moves.

Arm, arm, leg, hip, shake, arm, arm.

She was glad that she hadn’t chosen a harder and more complex song. This seemed to suit her well. She lip-synced as she danced along to the choreography for fun. She recorded a few more times I various outfits before she felt happy enough with what she had. She would edit and upload it once she was finished.

Her YouTube channel only had so many subscribers because she posted a lot of vocal covers and behind the scenes videos of her rehearsals and such. Still, she was thankful for those who subscribed and watched her videos. Yoona had edited the ‘costume changes’ smoothly and she was proud of herself for that. She decided on the 90 seconds she would use and edited it together. She watched it back a few times to make sure she was happy with everything before she uploaded it to her channel.

Jaemin hasn’t formally danced before. The last time he brought up the idea of taking dance classes to his mom, she exploded on him so the idea of dancing formally is somewhat of a fear for him. However, when MBC announced a dance contest for anyone over sixteen years old, he can’t help but give in and at least try to get some practice in. After all, if he really wants to be an idol, he’s going to have to learn at some point how to do hip-hop moves that are sharp and clean, rather than his current sloppy attempts. With only about a week to come up with something, Jaemin’s mind had been on overdrive thinking of not only a song but how to at least make the dance moves he picked up from college parties and TikTok look sharper than most people.

Focusing on the dance is most important to him so Jaemin quickly picks an artist he’s been listening to lately, Freddie Dredd. Dredd’s an edgy rapper with vulgar, annoying lyrics but his beats always are unique and sometimes sample something more fun than the actual song. After listening to a couple, he decides to go with “Cha Cha”, as it has the most versatility for him to work with. The intro starts off with a bossa nova sample that mentions dances like the “hula” and the “cha cha.” These dances aren’t hard and can add some humor to his dance; he doesn’t want to take this thing too seriously. The sample merges into Freddie’s verse. He figures this is when he can try to attempt some actual hip-hop moves, as the 90 seconds perfectly ends with the verse and another instance of the bossa nova sample. At home, Jaemin cuts the song to the 90 seconds he needs for his dance sample. For four days, Jaemin goes to the SKKU dance practice rooms and gets ready for “show day.”

Once he feels confident with his song and dance, Jaemin gets his props set up and checks out his outfit in the mirror. For props, he managed to find some blue LED string lights he can scatter throughout the back of the dance room he’s reserved on campus earlier in the week. He hangs them up haphazardly like a spider web, giving the cute lights a more ominous look. For his outfit, he contrasts the blue lights with a bright orange jacket and black jeans, with one leg accented by neon stripes by his ankle. He even did his hair and put in earrings into his usually empty piercings. Rather than people focus on his dancing, he hopes they focus on his look. After setting up his Bluetooth speaker to his phone and placing his camera on the tripod, he hits the record button. Instead of stopping between takes, he decided earlier to keep the song on loop and cut the take to the best performance.

He does ten iterations and feels like he hasn’t quite gotten it perfect. When the song starts again, he flashes a smile and dances the hula for a brief second before doing a purposefully silly, upbeat cha cha, which is just him swaying his hips as he steps back and forth while moving his hands to match the flow. As the sample fades, so does his smile and dancing. With a fierce face, he breaks into the hip-hop section. He pops and rolls his body to the lyrics. The lyrics accelerate, as does his moves. When Dredd breaks into a sing-song style, Jaemin sways back and forth, aware of the sharpness of his shoulders, until it transforms back into the intense arm and leg movements. He aggressively points at the camera at one point, while doing a running-man-esque move, and he almost cracks a smile at how "badass” he’s acting. As the end of the verse ends, he slows his moves down to a simple shuffle. Finally, the last instance of the bossa nova sample comes back and he flashes his bright smile again to match his excitable cha cha. As the sample breaks down in distortion, his smile fades until he lets his body fall loose and his head hanging.