RU ready for K-pop at Ryerson?

By Olivia Bednar

With K-Pop’s recent Canadian emergence, Ryerson students are coming together to enjoy the genre with RU K-Pop—Ryerson’s club for fans to socialize, dance and bond over the biggest crazes in popular Korean music.

The group has been growing steadily in popularity since its creation last year, but will be hosting its first orientation event on Nov. 23. K-Pop is not only present at Ryerson. Strong online communities dedicated the genre exist all over the world.

The musical genre originated in South Korea and can be categorized as pop music with an insane dance component and outrageous fashion. K-Pop artists usually front a group of dancers during performances, and dance a choreographed piece where their moves act out the lyrics of the song being sung.

According to Justin Liang, president of RU K-pop and third-year business management student, K-pop’s emergence in Canada can be attributed to popular acts adding certain provinces as tour stops.

K-Pop artist Taeyang—a popular performer in Korea and teen heartthrob—appeared on tour at the Air Canada Centre in October 2015. The singer is known to perform in flashy outfits, like sequined suits or glow in the dark attire, and bust crazy pop and lock dance moves.

“Our group is basically [around] to bring people that are interested in Korean pop together, to meet similar people and be friends,” said Liang.

A few of the members also enjoy making remixes and doing covers of K-Pop. Outside of RU K-Pop—a group at Ryerson called DnA covers popular K-Pop songs and compete in Toronto.

“The K-Pop community in Toronto in general is growing, there are a lot more events where they bring in K-Pop groups and local cover groups to perform at these events,” said Dasha Larionova, third-year early childhood studies student and member of DnA.

“We like to create a theme for all of our performances and try to make it a different kind of show.”

DnA have won awards in Superwave Korea and Korean Harvest Festival and are going to a K-Pop gala held by the Korean Embassy in Ottawa next month.

“What I like about the K-pop community is that there is very little judgment, it’s very supportive,” Alison Seo, also third-year early childhood studies student and member of DnA said.