#sorry my theatre related conflict resolution skills are bleeding ALL over this lmao

[sanstropfremir]

what do you think makes a well balanced group. your kepler ask mentions how skills and personality is important but is there a secret formula that you think is most potent. there are groups where each member is good at a specific thing, and groups where every member is equally skilled in dancing and singing. on one hand, if a group has the dynamic where everyone is equally skilled in all aspects it may make them lackluster. but would it be appropriate if say, 1 member is a weak dancer and the strongest vocalist and vice versa the same group has a strong dancer and weak vocal. maybe this dynamic would work in a small group, but not a large one? the trouble with large groups being, if all members have the same skills no one pays attention to them, or there will always be a standout member of a large group because realistically a group with 6 members and up cant be equally skilled with z e r o quirks or differences

well. this is kind of a multi-faceted answer, because although i don't think there's a specific 'secret formula' for a perfect group, kpop already has a structure that members get slotted into that actually does work. so yes, but also no? it's complicated.

so the whole system of assigned positions is essentially the formula that makes a well balanced group. that's literally the point of each of the positions; they're there in order to organize the roles so the group is balanced. now, do companies get it right all the time? no. do fans agree with it? absolutely not. but that IS what it's there for, and, in my opinion, it does work. most of the time. i think it's stupid and naive for fans to argue for equal line distribution yadda yadda because being a vocal is not going to be everyone's strong point. a main vocal SHOULD have the majority of the singing, that's their job. a main dancer SHOULD be leading dance breaks etc, that's their job. and an assigned centre SHOULD be in centre position, because they're there to be the hook. i've talked about how centre position is important before so i won't hash over that again, but my point is that those assigned positions aren't random, they're there in order to establish a balance within a group, so that people know what your place is. it's a job description.

however, those are just general positions, and obviously not every person and group has the same distribution of skills. what actually makes a balanced group is the people in that group understanding that they need to be balanced. no group is ever going to have the same interpersonal or skill related dynamics, but if all the members understand the parts they play and work together to fill in gaps and create a unified image, that's what makes the whole thing work.

of course this also feeds into my own personal beliefs about group composition, which i think are probably uncommon: i don't think there should be any large groups at all. five is the perfect size, seven is fine, nine is the MAXIMUM. groups larger than that have difficulty maintaining focal points and also have a higher likelihood of having filler members who may be able to keep up technically, but don't do much other than bolster numbers. everyone jokes about nct being too big, but the reality is that nct almost never promotes with more than nine members in a subunit, because sm intimately knows that if a group gets too big, it gets messy. you keep the member numbers down, and all those members have more of an equal reason to be there, even if it's not 'equal' in the songs or performances. there's a lot of other things that idols do that require different skills that aren't used in performance, and those are distributed differently depending on the group.

obvs none of these are hard and fast rules, and often a lot of groups settle into shapes that go beyond their 'job descriptions' and that's fine, because they're usually working through that together. it's all about negotiation