LONDON, Aug 2 — Korean entertainment agency SM Entertainment just released a preview of their first British-based boy group Dear Alice, created from a reality show Made in Korea : The K-Pop Experience.
The group is a collaboration between SM and Moon&Back Media featuring five members who are Blaise Noon (19), Dexter Greenwood (22), James Sharp (23), Oliver Quinn (20), and Reese Carter (20).
It’s rather unusual for group members to be revealed prior to a show’s airing when the usual reality show format in South Korea is a survival-style format where groups participate in weekly challenges and rankings that will determine the final lineup.
Made in Korea : The K-Pop Experience is due to begin airing on the BBC for six episodes.
According to the release, the members will be put through the “original K-pop training process” for 100 days, with vocal and performance lessons as well as learning that mainstay of K-pop: choreography.
K-pop Svengali Hee Jun-yoon will be giving the band a weekly critique on their progress through their training.
Considering that the average K-pop trainee usually goes through years of training with no guarantee of debuting in a group this ‘bootcamp’ where members have been pre-selected than going through accelerated training is perhaps the antithesis of the K-pop trainee system that SM pioneered.
The group has its eyes on the UK and global scene so we’ll see if this K-pop without going through the usual K-pop hurdles while not featuring a single Korean is well-received.
