EXO’s Kai
Kim Jong-in (Hangul: 김종인) was born in Suncheon, South Jeolla, South Korea, on January 14th, 1994. He is known for his stage name Kai (Hangul: 카이) and debuted as a member of the boy group, EXO, in December 2011 and made his first appearance on television with his fellow members Chen, Luhan, and Tao, while performing at the year-end music program SBS Gayo Dae-jeon.
EXO’s Kai was also one of the members of the SM Artist project unit, Younique Unit, with SNSD’s Hyoyeon, Super Junior’s Eunhyuk and Henry, SHINee’s Taemin and EXO’s Luhan by releasing a single on October 31st, 2012, titled “Maxstep.” This unit was created by the lead dancers from each SM Entertainment girl group and boy group who has a talent in dancing on another level.
EXO’s Kai is known as one of the best dancers in his group and also the dancing machine of SM Entertainment. He took the position as the center of the group and has more lines in dancing. Before debuting, EXO’s Kai learned dancing for the first time when he was only 8 years old and he originally learned jazz dance. In the 3rd grade, EXO’s Kai began to learn ballet after he watched The Nutcracker. He then joined an audition for SM Youth Best Contest with the encouragement from his father and eventually won, then signed under SM Entertainment in 2007 as a trainee.
On December 13th, 2018, EXO released another music video along with their previous comeback in November 2019 titled “Don’t Mess Up My Tempo” and the comeback has become a huge success as the music video has surpassed 100 Million views on YouTube in just 2 months, 19 days, 4 hours and 16 minutes since its release.
EXO’s Lay
Zhang Jiashuai (張藝興) was born in Changsha, Hunan, China, on October 7th, 1991. He is also known for his stage name Zhang Yixing (张艺兴) or Lay Zhang (Hangul: 레이) and debuted in 2012 with EXO’s subunit, EXO M, under SM Entertainment.
EXO’s Lay, was once a child actor in China as he played a role in the television drama, We The People (1998), as Huan Huan when he was only 8 years old. 2 years later, EXO’s Lay made another appearance in a Chinese TV show as a fan club member of the Taiwanese singer and actor, Jimmy Lin, and signed a contract with his first entertainment company at that time.
In 2005, EXO’s Lay won the 3rd place at the competition named Star Academy. Before debuting, EXO’s Lay was originally prepared and trained to be an actor until, in 2008, he joined SM Entertainment’s global casting auditions in Changsha and moved to South Korea for his idol training.
SM Entertainment has recognized EXO’s Lay’s talent as a professional dancer and he made a solo debut on October 26th, 2016, by releasing an EP titled Lose Control with 6 Mandarin tracks and a music video for the title song. In his solo debut, EXO’s Lay took the most important role as the producer, composer, arrangement, choreography, and song lyrics when it comes to translating into Korean, Chinese, English, and Japanese version.
On June 14th, 2019, EXO’s Lay released a new EP with its music video titled “Honey.” The album Honey has broken several records when it was announced for pre-order on June 11th, 2019. In just a matter of minutes, fans have invaded the purchase of the album Honey to reach the diamond level in China QQ Music. Honey also received double diamond status with the achievement of pre-orders reaching 1.87 million copies. Previously Lay’s album titled NAMANANA also reached a record within 11 hours and 57 minutes.
But the album, Honey, only took 3 minutes to break the record of NAMANANA. Whereas Lay himself is still active as a solo artist in China and later began to explore promotions in America; one of them by attending the Grammy Awards.
RED VELVET’s Seulgi
Kang Seul-gi (Hangul: 강슬기) was born in Ansan, South Korea, on February 10th, 1994. She is also known by her stage name Seul-gi (Hangul: 슬기) and debuted as a member of the girl group Red Velvet with 3 other girls, on August 1st, 2014, by releasing a music video titled “행복 (Happiness).”
Red Velvet’s Seul-gi is known as one of the best female dancers from SM Entertainment and is mostly known as a dancing machine among the female idol groups. Before debuting, Red Velvet’s Seul-gi began her trainee period in SM Entertainment in 2007 and was one of the female trainees who was added to SM Entertainment’s pre-debut project, SM Rookies, in December 2013.
After a sneak peek video of her dancing to “Be Natural” with her fellow member, Red Velvet’s Irene, while they were still on SM Rookies, they were recognized with their great skills in dancing and will be SM Entertainment’s best female dancers in the future. As time went by, Red Velvet’s Seul-gi became more famous for her dancing skill as she could dance in such powerful movements and has her own solo stage or has performed with other well-known and acclaimed female dancers at many award events.
Nowadays, Red Velvet’s Seul-gi has been known among her fans, ReVeLuv, and the many K-Pop fans, as the best dancer since her movements always look perfectly sharp and powerful, especially in any comeback she has made. No matter what genre it is, Red Velvet’s Seul-gi always has her charm with the dance moves and she could hype up everyone with her charisma as well.
On June 19th, 2019, Red Velvet released another comeback with the EP titled 짐살라빔 (Zimzalabim) by also uploading their newest music video on SMTOWN’s official YouTube account. This comeback came along with a mini-album The Reve Festival: Day 1. The enthusiasm of ReVeluv for this comeback of the group could easily be seen as the music video had been watched hundreds of thousands of times in the first 30 minutes.
Zimzalabim’s concept invited the audience to enjoy a playground full of imagination and a colorful theme. The same spirit is also reflected in the song as it resembles a summer theme song, indulging in cheerfulness with easy chorus parts and a strong electronic touch towards the end, before the tone moves to pop.
