K

orean pop culture, better known as K-pop, has stormed around the globe, including Indonesia, in the past few years. As K-pop has tried to reach out to potential markets outside its country, industry players in the entertainment sector also try to net more talent from outside Korea. One of the way to net the new talent is to hold audition program. YS Media invited several Indonesian journalists, including The Jakarta Post’s Irawaty Wardany, to Seoul to see in up close and personal on the audition process. Below is her report.

Dressed all in black with a ponytail and bangs almost like a Korean woman, complete with a pair of high heels, Yediyelia Dongoran also known as Yeye, 17, confidently sang Jessie J’s “Price Tag” in front of a crowd of a K-Pop Festival held in a mall in Goyang City, Gyeonggi-do Province, South Korea, early in May.

Yeye is one of the 10 selected Korean-Indonesian pop (Kinpop) artists wannabes on a new audition TV program called Galaxy Superstar, aired by Indosiar every Sunday at 8 p.m.

The program aims at creating a new breed of Korean pop idol by combining the cultures and characteristics of both countries into its artists.

The program is a joint cooperation between Indonesian-based YS Media artist management that will bind the finalists to a five-year contract and Rainbow Bridge Agency that will nurture their talents as artists.

President and CEO of PT. YS Media, Park Young-soo, said the reason he sent all Galaxy Superstar winners to be trained in South Korea was because Indonesia had yet to have an artist grooming system like in Korea, while Indonesia had so much talent.

“Hopefully, we can learn and adopt the system that has given birth to Korean top singers and helped them to become global stars,” he said.

The Galaxy Superstar program, he said, was designed to combine talents and the cultures of both countries so that the stars from the program could be accepted by a wider range of audiences.

“We have seen Korean pop artists go global, and I believe Indonesians can follow suit. They only need to be well managed,” Park said.

The 10 Indonesian talented teens who passed the Galaxy Superstar audition have been in South Korea for almost two months to receive the benefits of the Korean idol training system under the Rainbow Bridge Agency, where some Korean pop artists namely 4minute, G.NA, A pink, Boyfriend and BtoB got vigorous training before debuting as singers.

Ever since the Korean pop music emerged as a new music form in Asia and some part of the worlds, many teenagers have made South Korea as their main reference in music.

Aside from the 10 Galaxy Superstar trainees, the Rainbow Bridge Agency also trains around 15 youths from Thailand, Japan, China, Taiwan and Canada who are all expected to jump on the bandwagon of Korean pop.

One of Galaxy Superstar’s artists-to-be, Rosella Setiadi, or Uno, 23, said she had been a huge fan of K-pop since she was in junior high school. She listened to Korean singers such as BoA, H.O.T, Fin KL, Shinhwa and becoming a die-hard fan of Xiah Junsu of the JYJ group.

“I like Korean pop because most of the artists are good at singing and dancing at the same time,” she said.

The girl, who has been in love with dance since she was a little, said she found her place when she was on stage. Therefore, she had decided to pursue her dream in the entertainment world, even though she was an information system graduate from Tarumanagara University.

It is not an easy path for Uno and others as they all have to obey rules that are set by the agency including to lose weight to be able to look good on screen.

After winning the Galaxy Superstar audition, Uno and the nine others will have to undergo a six-month training period under Rainbow Bridge before their trainers and managers at YS Media decide whether they have made the cut to launch an album or they need to undergo further trainings.

In one opportunity to show off the their training results so far in front of five members of a noted Korean group B2ST, a group’s member Lee Gikwang commented that he did not expected to see some talented Indonesian teenagers who have traveled far to South Korea to receive training to become idols.

Another B2ST member, Son Dongwoon, said all he could share about the Galaxy Superstar trainers was that they said the participants must enjoy all the process they had and would go through.

He told them about experiences of B2ST members who had undergone up to seven years of training without a guarantee when they would be able to produce an album.

“Don’t rush. Don’t expect instant results and just enjoy all the process,” Dongwoon said.

B2ST members said passion is as much important aspect as talent when people decided to have career in music.

Asked whether the Galaxy Superstar trainees would debut as solo singers or groups, Rainbow Bridge’s CEO Kim Jin-woo, who is also the juror of the Galaxy Superstar program said they had yet to determine form of the Galaxy Superstar artists in the future.

“It all depends on their development during their training period,” he said.

A noted songwriter Kim Do-hoon, the hit maker behind of CNBLUE’s “Loner” and FT Island’s “Severely”, who is also a juror of the Galaxy Superstar program, is expected to compose a song for whichever of the 10 trainees make the cut to launch their album first.