#which isnt like.....in the fun way that sunmi's choreos hinge on her or how taemin's choreos hinge on him

[sanstropfremir]

Hello I've been meaning to ask if you ever saw the 2017 taemin and jimin (b//tee/ss) collab stage and what your thoughts are on it. People like to debate over who was the "better dancer " which I feel technically isn't to fair to the b&*ts member cause taemin had MANY years to perfect his craft plus had lik a few solo stuff under his belt. For me personally I prefer taemin dance style. Some think that jimin's dance style is more off beat or like emotionally raw? While taemin is more technical but doesn't lose his "face". I'm curious on your thoughts! 💖

hello!!! i have seen it, yes! i agree that i don't really think the comparison is fair, because taemin does have that much more experience but also because they have different style bases. taemin's popping base means that he tends towards sharper and more defined movements that have clear finish points and geometric shapes. and he's fast. jimin has a base much closer and more heavily influenced by contemporary, so he's less focused on stopping his lines in the same way. however i will say this is not necessarily good contemporary practice, but i'm gonna come back to that. jimin is also not very fast. this is not a fault of contemporary practice either, although it does usually tend to be a balladic style. i think there's become a bit of a false equivalency that has happened when a general audience engages with an 'emotional' performance, and that is that emotion and technique are somehow mutually exclusive. that to have a more 'emotional' performance the dancer has to 'break' technique in some way, because apparently if you're really feeling the feelings, technique doesn't matter. i think this has happened for two reasons. the first is reality/competition television and its manipulative editing, and the second is that the 'carelessness' or break makes the performer seem more relatable. we've all fucked something up in the heat of the moment. and although i don't think this line of thinking is totally invalid, i do think that it does kinda defeat the point of performance unless used in very specific circumstances. most of the time you aren't supposed to see the performer underneath the performance. kpop is one of the few forms where that is almost...encouraged? in a way?? it's an art form that's born from cult of personality, so audience engagement with any of the work supersedes the preface of storytelling and goes straight to the admiration of the performer themselves. it's not about how well they can tell a story, its about how well the audience perceives them performing. and i am specifically aiming this at fanbases, not at the idols themselves. a truly exceptional artist doesn't need to sacrifice technique to tell a good story.

and i think here is where we see the main crux of the difference between taemin and jimin as performers: taemin has both an artistic and an idol persona. we know and understand him to do solo work that has a separate artistic meaning to just him being an idol. even though this performance was pre-move, i would still say this applies, because he's hot off press your number, where he's acting in a story based mv. jimin on the other hand just has his idol persona. he's not known for creating the same kind of storytelling that taemin is. while i was drafting this response i got two different asks about bts so i'm gonna save the longer discussion about their brand for those, since this is already getting upwards in the wordcount.

now lets bring it back in to dance specifically; there's a couple things i want to elabourate on. first and foremost, jimin isn't fast enough to keep up with taemin in this choreo. it's much more in line with taemin's style and honestly most idol dancers would have trouble keeping up with taemin. secondly, i said previously that jimin's casual line finishes are not good contemporary practice, and that's true. contemporary does have more emphasis on fluidity and fluid shapes rather than strict geometric ones, but good contemporary has very pointed stops when they're there. and luckily, there's some neat examples that i can use to better illustrate what i'm talking about. byeongkwan from a.c.e has actually done a cover of lie, specifically of the section that jimin does here, AND he precedes it by doing a cover of want!! which hello!!! how much more perfect an example can i get!! byeongkwan has base in hiphop, he's a huge taemin fan, plus he has fantastic body isolation, and if a.c.e can do anything its dance really fucking fast. you can see in the way that he dances want he keeps all the transitions very very fluid, there's very little stop points between positions because that's how taemin dances it; its all about being as fluid as possible, but it still requires a rigidity of form that means that you cannot slack. there's no place here for an errant uncontrolled hand: breaking the technique is breaking the performance. and then watch how he changes that approach going into lie. he has very clear and very fast stops; when he's still, he's still: there's no overshoot on his movements, he's purposeful in his placement.

my other example is taemin has very kindly done a full contemporary routine, just me and you, as a vcr from the ngda beyond live. it's fucking incredible and i full on wept watching it for the first time during the concert. it's an excellent example of good contemporary that doesn't sacrifice technique and is still extremely emotional. also like, not to bring this routine up again for the nth time but ten and winwin's lovely is another great example (this link is a live performance this time). the both of them are have very strong shape creation and i've talked about ten briefly before as a contemporary based dancer but here let me quickly draw your attention to winwin's HANDS. look at them!!!! he has training in chinese traditional dance which has extremely specific hand positions and you can see it; his placements and positions are so specific!!! he's so nice to watch!!!

ok this got longer than i expected but i think i've covered most of my main points pertaining to this specific collab; when i finish the other asks about bts i'll edit a link in here: part two, and part three.