This past week, the Sentinel K-pop club performed live at the Bridge Festival in Ambleside. Since the Bridge Festival is a relatively new event, here is a quick overview in case you don’t know much about it: Bridge Festival is an annual event dedicated to celebrating BC’s diversity through different cultural pavilions. These pavilions showcase the culture of different countries in various ways, whether it be through food, music, or activities. Having helped coordinate the Korean pavilion and connect the K-pop club with the festival, I got a chance to interview them. So, whether you are a K-pop enthusiast, avid stage-performer, or you’re simply reading for enjoyment, here it is.
What songs did you perform? Why did you pick the songs you did?
In this year's Bridge festival, we performed a K-pop dance medley. The songs included “Step Back” by GOT the beat, “Kill this Love” by BLACKPINK, “ICY” by ITZY, and “Permission to Dance” by BTS. First of all, we wanted to select “Kill this Love” as this song was well-known and one of the songs that we believed presented the K-pop genre. Second, we chose “Step Back” because this song was practiced from our previous dance cover project; we wanted to perform on stage with a song we were confident in and where most of our members could participate in. Third, we picked “ICY” as one of our songs because it involved lots of music components that remind us of the summer vibe that all people can easily enjoy. Lastly, we chose “Permission to Dance” as our wrap-up performance to have every club member enjoy and really share the message that the song is presenting: we don’t need permission to dance!
How long and what did you do to prepare?
We started gathering members and practicing at the end of April and rehearsing near the start of May. We had meetings every Tuesday and Thursday during lunch and some X-block time. We ran through the whole process involving the opening/closing of the stage, choreography, mirror practicing, filming, etc.
What were your feelings before, during, and after the performance?
Benita: As a club leader who performed with our club members, I was kind of nervous at the beginning. Nevertheless, I wanted to be a good role model to our club members and took full responsibility to support the members during and off the stage. This firm heart of mine actually helped me to get rid of the tension quickly.
Personally, I was very excited because it has been a while since my last performance, so during the performance, I really enjoyed it! The weather wasn’t the best, but a lot of people came to see us to support and I saw a lot of happy faces.
After performing, I was really satisfied with our performance and happily enjoyed it.
Were there any issues you guys faced? If so, how did you get past those?
No particular issues. All of our leaders planned schedules ahead, so we mostly followed it!
Has your group done anything similar before?
The Bridge Festival was our first time performing in front of a live audience. However, we did try to connect with our audiences virtually by posting dance cover videos/performances through YouTube and Instagram.
What did you take away from this experience? Did you learn something new?
From this experience, we became more interested in performing at public events.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Hope to see you guys perform again next year!
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