did you know kpop random dances are not in fact random
2025.04.13
The Leadup
For a while I’ve been trying to do two things: one, to get my friend who clearly finds a lot of enjoyment and meaning in dance, and, being an avid kpop fan, most frequently engages in this through kpop choreographies, to get back into it, and two, to somehow weasel myself into this hobby along with them. One thing they’ve mentioned multiple times is just not having anyone to do it with them, and it seems like either they don’t like doing it alone or he just has other things he could be doing with friends, and since none of them that are close enough physically to him also like dance, they just end up dropping it. And I think that if I had someone else to do it with me, I might be able to convince myself to learn kpop dances, and additionally, that the more I learn coordinated dance the greater repertoire of Normal Looking Dance Moves I will have to use in regular, ecstatic dance.
Said friend had mentioned last year a random kpop dance event that takes place near a city I used to sort of live in, and is not too far away – about an hour’s drive. Last year, we didn't end up going; I said it’d be cute, in what I hope was a way that encourages them to invite me to similar events or take note in my interest in the topic, but noted that I’d definitely just be on the sidelines, watching. I think there was also some scheduling conflict, but I’m not sure, my memory’s not the best.
But this year, after continued attempts at worming my way into doing something dance related with them, and both our work schedules aligning such that we were both free that day – we decided to go.
They bought studio time, which was not a thing I even knew you could do, for them to practice the songs they know and help teach me at least one. Before even doing this, I have to determine one of the ten million dances that are in the lineup for this event to learn, meaning I also have to spend a good chunk of time watching a bunch of kpop dance videos. Typing “[song name] [artist name] dance” into the youtube search bar feels forbidden. Something or someone will know I’m not where I should be, stretching outside of my place, and forcefully remind me of it. This is the level of personal repression I am working with, and I am forced to come to terms with it. Nonetheless, I find a couple I’m interested in, and try to choose from the ones they’ve marked as being comfortable with or at least sort of knowing. It is not lost on me the time and effort put into making this list for me in the first place, and the level of reciprocal engagement it asks for.
We leave late, my outfit is questionable, and I forget to bring a mask. My friend is frustrated already by the first thing, a flavor of their autism being timeliness, and I can only hope the last doesn’t bother him.
The studio time itself remains, to me, largely unremarkable, as the feeling that overwhelmingly dominates is surprising and reticent, timid determination. They make fun of me, and I was so brave about it and kept trying after a brief (uncommunicated) pause. Because I have to force myself to understand this as jovial, reframe it not as my friend pointing out the ways in which I am lesser to be cruel, but as a natural part of learning something new that holds no morality or greater statement. And then they did it again, to my metamour, after bringing me home. And I again had to be so fucking brave about it, because I know they don’t mean to be cruel.
But for a bit at the end, when I’m a bit overwhelmed from… all that, and they’re tired of doing the same goddamn moves over and over, I get to watch him practice all the choreographies he knows, and… I get to see the joy of getting a part right, of moving their body in coordinated fashion to music, the focus to remember sections, connectors, expressions while moving, the tweaks of movements, the phrasing… and for at least that moment it is an incredible beauty. I value & cherish it.
After we leave, we discover he’s gotten a parking ticket, which sours the already difficult mood for trying to divine what food we would want after functionally exercising for a couple hours. The nearest tea shop takes significantly longer than expected, and the chicken place plays songs they actively dislike and gives us an incorrect item, which the worker thankfully is kind about, but that adds even more time to the excursion.
Despite all this, I continue to try and practice what I’ve learned, as well as learn some of another song who’s choreo I much prefer. I take my few moments at work in front of the floor-length mirror next to the desk, and some times at home in front of the also floor-length mirror in my partner’s room, left over from our ex-housemates. When nothing feels appealing due to some mix of medications, societal conditions, and personal neurochemistry, I try and make myself do some sort of personal interest, try and convince myself dancing won’t kill me on the spot. I know that repetition is the only way to confirm the viability of such things as “engaging in hobbies and interests.”
I realize that another benefit of learning coordinated, planned dance is sheer practice moving my body, getting used to its flow and angles, and yes, its spontaneous coordination, the ability to see an action and correctly internalize what to move and in what way, order, etc.
The Logistics
So, because my coworker is in-between housing situations (his parents moved recently, and while his mom moved a good couple hours’ drive from where we both work, he’s chosen to move in with his dad to some condo closer by… that inconveniently won’t be ready to move in to for at least another month, but there’s no actual date set yet), all of my shifts are packed close together. And I notably by now am well aware of the fact that past day three in a row of customer service, I start getting bitter and despising customers for like, breathing in my presence.
On top of this, my fucking retail manager keeps coming in to keep tabs, which is good from a business perspective, but from the perspective of me, a lower-rank employee who now has to listen to him give the same unskippable 30-minute minimum monologue about his managerial ethos every single time, or otherwise learn some new horror about the company he’s deeply invested himself in, is fucking miserable. And for extra fun, it means I need to hunt down the fucking customers like prey, just in case they can be convinced to buy some bag they don’t need, which is obviously what the parent company wants, regardless of how insistently my retail manager will deny this change in company values. So I get to be extra exhausted, in more pain, for no reason, because “the company that would throw me away if it meant a 1% increase for shareholders might get a little bit more money” is not a serious reason.
So, I’m working three days, then have one day off, during which I will be attending a Kpop random dance event they keep changing the lineup of, before returning for another four consecutive days of work.
On top of this, my friend asks me some time after I have already agreed to go whether I’d be ok with one of his friends who they don’t often get to see coming along, since she also likes this type of thing. Knowing this will make me uncomfortable even considering joining my friend in dancing, but not wanting (nor feeling it to be my place) to deny them this reunion, and his friend the opportunity as well to share in a mutual hobby (and perhaps not frequently enjoyed in company), I accept. I ignore what this means for me.
A bit later, my friend asks me again: how would I feel if two of our mutual friends (my partner and metamour) come to practice at the studio space. I should stress that through all this, my friend is being perfectly accommodating, checking in to see if I’d be comfortable with these changes. This time I say no, because there’s no way in hell I’m moving at all if even more people show up. It is already an effort of comical proportions to convince myself to practice choreos with my one friend at all. They are of course receptive.
Perhaps a day or so before the event, he asks me one final thing: now his friend has a friend she’d like to bring along, who my friend does not know, since this person also likes learning kpop dances. I would feel rude being the one to reject this, and accept. I again ignore as best I can what this means for me.
The Event
I spend my waking hours before my friend picks me up dreading the event, wondering what in the hell could possibly have convinced me this was a good idea. I am crying for the last hour or so of waiting all the way up ‘til my friend says they’re on their way, convinced I would be horribly miserable the entire time. We meet up with the others and somehow I’m getting along with these two new people, but I forgot I am the type of transgender that is visibly incongruent and, notably, not a woman.
We get to the place, and there’s children at the event. And their parents. And I look like some kind of weird faggot. During the trans moral panic. Cool. Great. There are a maximum of 3 other people I can clock as men at this event, and not a lot of visibly genderqueer people at all. There is one singular transfemme I only notice after about the first third of the event.
The dance groups from the studio are fucking performing, and they’re, like, in costume. The children are performing as a unit for these songs. Somehow this does not trigger my typical response of something along the lines of “oh god I can never try this activity because I’m Bad At It (from the aforementioned never trying).”
People… seem to be hyping each other up to do the ones they know? And like, a lot of people know a lot of them, but also, a lot seem to just know a couple? One person is clearly Not Really Good at this, but still manages to go out and join the group when something they know comes on? Also, some people are experiencing the mirrored dance choreography nightmare, and it is both unfortunate to recognize and trips me up because I have to ask myself, wait, which one of you is wrong? By the end, I come away from it… somehow not feeling like I need to never attempt to dance again out of shame and fear?
I have a miserable moment of othering at the very last second when all of the people I came with walk seamlessly into the women’s bathroom and I am left trying to make myself as small as I possibly can and deciding I’ll just pee at home – this is compounded by my friend gushing later in their car about how meaningful it was to be able to have a sweet femme bathroom chat with the only other visibly trans person at the event who was not a part of our group. It does not seem like any of them notice at all that I have been left behind. I stand awkwardly outside, as if an invisible barrier prevents me from going any further. Someone comes out of the women’s bathroom and I instinctively look up, expecting my friends – they are not – I panic that they’ll think I’m a creep standing outside the (lack of) door and move over to the wall next to the men’s. On the ride home, I try and maintain a supportive and generally cheery composure because I know how much this does in fact mean to my friend, and I want to give them the space to feel that joy and connection.
Despite the overwhelming feeling of misery from the sense there is no where that wants or is meant for me that pervades my next few days, the fact that I do not break down at either time when I, to all existent self-knowledge, could not have done anything else, reacted in any other way, is something I know I have to cling to, reify in my mind. And so I try.