By Helin Jung
Half an hour before the scheduled start of his New York City concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom, Jin Young Park was pacing the stage, raining a hailstorm of instructions on his crew. He had only a few minutes to mark several numbers from his set, but nothing was working the way he wanted it to, and the line of concertgoers, which included the Ahn Trio, had already stretched down the block outside.
It was the 11th hour before the last show of a three-city U.S. tour that featured mega-entertainer-producer Park and his latest pop protégées, the Wonder Girls, at the top of the bill. The production crew had put together three concerts in four days, kicking off in Los Angeles at the Wiltern Theater, then moving to Orange County before flying to New York for the final show at the Hammerstein. They were exhausted, functioning on three hours of sleep a night, and running late.
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The Wonder Girls themselves — Yubin, Ye Eun, Sun Ye, Sun Mi and Sohee — exhibited none of the fatigue or frustration of the rest of the staff. In leather leggings and cropped motorcycle jackets, hair pressed and curled, they ambled about the stage absentmindedly — humming, staring into space, and cracking jokes with one another. Ye Eun (at nearly 20, one of the older members of the group) bent down to say hello to a group of teenage YouTubers. They had been invited to join the Wonder Girls on stage for a rendition of their latest hit single, “Nobody,” a glittery piece of faux-retro, Dreamgirls-lite synth-pop that has even caught the attention of Perez Hilton.
Park rushed the YouTube fans onto the stage and gave them instructions for the dance.
“All you have to do is have fun,” he said.
The YouTube fans are mostly white teenagers, brought together in an obviously purposeful way. They are kids who uploaded sweet and earnest fanvids of themselves singing ballad and ukulele versions of “Nobody.” They are also, perhaps more importantly, part of a larger conceit that Park’s production company and talent agency, JYP Entertainment, is fleshing out in anticipation of a potential stateside debut for the Wonder Girls. Thanks to the internet, the Wonder Girls are already a “global phenomenon.”
Creating global phenomena is a major motif for JYP Entertainment, which runs year-round auditions and talent programs in a kind of farm system for churning out the next big pop stars. The Wonder Girls came up through this system, and the final stages of the group’s genesis were broadcast in 2007 on a reality show on MTV Korea, officially introducing them to Korean audiences.
Currently in Los Angeles recording an English-language studio album slated for release later this year, the Wonder Girls are now making their stateside debut official. Park is said to be close to signing the Wonder Girls to a major U.S. management company, and he announced at the Hammerstein concert that the Wonder Girls would soon be opening for a “No. 1 artist’s tour.” However the crossover happens for the Wonder Girls, they will be the latest in a fairly long line of marquee Korean pop stars to attempt a mainstream venture into the American market.
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When asked what the biggest challenges of such an effort might be, lead vocalist Sun Ye, 19, responded via e-mail: “Without a doubt, it’s the language barrier. As you may know, English is our second language, and we’re not perfect at it yet. But one thing I can assure you is that we’re trying to improve ourselves all the time.”
With varying degrees of success, the Wonder Girls incorporated English into their set – speaking rehearsed lines to the audience (“It’s our heart for you. We wanna say we love you, but the question is, how long will you love us?”), and playing a taped skit in which they envisioned their futures as Oscar winners and fashion designers.
Sun Ye continued, “One of the biggest concerns is about expressing our feelings perfectly to our audience. Since we’re performing in a foreign country, we’re worried about delivering a good performance.”
“JYP has much experience with concerts, so he told us to open concerts with strong comments like, ‘What’s up, LA!’ instead of ‘hello’ or ‘hi,’” Ye Eun said.
C.S. Hah, C.E.O. of Powerhouse Entertainment and one of the co-producers of the tour, also advised the girls to interact with their new audience.
“Since we have an increasing number of non-Koreans or non-Korean-speaking audience, it’s good to have the artist speak English or make an effort to speak English on the stage,” Hah said.
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Hah’s core promotional and production philosophy centers on interaction with fans, whoever they may be, and to that end, Hah uses English on his company website and has made a point to heavily promote his programs online, where the largest number of non-Korean speakers find information about Korean pop acts.
Park, who declined to comment, has previously dismissed the importance of language, telling Portfolio magazine in 2008 that “if the performers are charismatic and the music is written for global tastes, it’ll cross over.”
Still, JYP Entertainment is actively courting its English-speaking audience. There is a U.S. division of the company based in New York, the Wonder Girls albums have been made available for purchase on iTunes, and JYP Entertainment has created a YouTube channel featuring the videos of its artists.
In late April, MTV Iggy, MTV World’s new catch-all for its former Asian American boutique channels, will premiere the Wonder Girls in a format similar to the television debuts of Rain, Seven and BoA – a taping at MTV’s Times Square studios.
Lem Lopez, an executive producer at MTV World and one of the main forces behind Iggy, believes that the Wonder Girls have a real chance at mainstream success.
“Artists like the Wonder Girls, they’re not here,” Lopez said. “The point is to tap into that passion and introduce the masses to them.”
At the taping, Lopez was surprised to find that there were as many non-Asian audience members as there were Asian ones.
“That’s just phenomenal,” he said. “True crossover.”
Whether these efforts translate into bona fide success remains to be seen; the Wonder Girls will not be promoting any projects in the U.S. until later this year. They made at least one new fan that night in New York City, though. As the crowds exited the building and the staff cleared the stage, a Hammerstein employee stacked chairs while singing the chorus to “Nobody.”
