K-pop boot camps in choreographic co-creative labor

Abstract

The worldwide popularity of South Korean popular music has generated global consumer demand for variations of its grueling training regimen offered by talent recruitment agencies and dance studios. Using the case study of the South Korean popular music boot camps offered by the Australia-based agency, The Academy, this article seeks to frame these performative engagements along more cosmopolitan notions of choreographic co-creative labor. In contrast to the highly competitive South Korean popular music machinery, participation in these boot camps can be characterized as affective prosumer “free labor” from trainees from diverse backgrounds, abilities, and motivations. Through programs that enable trainees to “re-present,” “re-organize,” and “re-interpret” K-pop dance performances, studios like The Academy leverage on K-pop’s popularity and its training pedagogies so as to open new fields of creative labor. Accompanying such openings are the strengthening transnational connectivities in the activities of The Academy in intensifying existing multicultural networks in Australia. The studio is also part of a more cosmopolitan platform in orienting traditionally Eurocentric mainstream Australia culturally toward the Asia-Pacific region. By further democratizing the dance abilities of K-pop choreographies, initiatives like The Academy serve in enlarging creative labor in transnational rhythmic communities.