Winners Dance School

[greywing]

So I was being nostalgic and watching (and loving) HyoYeon and Min's Little Winners Stage (miss this Hyo so much and I didn't even know her), when it occurred to me that I had never tried the Winners Dance School homepage. Apparently, WDS also has a Cyworld club page. And clicking around the profile links reveals some interesting things:

Comments

[hyomona]

Wow that's interesting. I didn't know Winners was so popular with Kpop artists.

BTW I wrote my first LJ entry. It is rather long and rambling though...

[arbitrary_greay]

Maybe then Hyo's MTV was just a one-time thing lined up by MTV?

Also, it's interesting that for the "groups trained" section sometimes it's the whole group and sometimes it's just a few members. That may be why I don't see Minzy being as versatile as Hyo, because she's only done hip hop styles while WDS does all that other stuff.(like tap-dancing!:D)

I agree that they probably have different classes for different people. Otherwise we should have seen some Hyo-Hyuna interaction...
I wonder why After School didn't get WDS training since Son Dam Bi did? Maybe they figure Gahee is a good enough teacher.

[greywing]

Maybe then Hyo's MTV was just a one-time thing lined up by MTV?

I always figured it was, lol. I'd assumed she'd left them before debut, but I hadn't figured that it had been possibly years before she'd debuted in 2007.

I think the second list might have been like more specific work with a group, perhaps "one-time" things. That "han" is throwing me off, since among its meanings it's the number 1 but it could have a different meaning the way it's tagged onto "training" like that. So the Son Dambi thing might be more when she was working on a specific stage, something like that.

[arbitrary_greay]

I'd say then the one-time thing for SNSD would have been their IDB showcase, but then shouldn't it list HyoSooRi individually like with "2NE1 CL" instead of blanket SNSD? Maybe they also ganked some WDS for Chocolate, then, or Chaotic, since we know Jaewon did the first SDB.

Come closer baby, set me off, just set me off~

[craver199103]

This is so interesting. D:

Why is it that with the "7 years of training", I had just assumed that all 7 years were spent with Winners? I'd also love to know if any of the training periods overlapped, but, but I suppose even it if did they could have still gone on not-knowing each other since it seems like Min and Hyo were given special training? Or perhaps they were all trained in groups but were also paired off to tailor to competitions?

Hmm...I also wonder why out of all the individual artists listed, Hyo seems to be so far above the rest. I've seen glimpses of serious potential behind Hyunah, but she's just...not up there. The same goes for Seungyeon who is honestly very largely forgettable on stage. I suppose they may've received like the "basic" package then? It is not my bias talking when I say out of the individual artists listed, Hyo has shown the most overall skill and improvement, excluding Min and A1ST, both of whom are MIA.

Re: Come closer baby, set me off, just set me off~

[greywing]

My whole timeline that I'd been building in my head for Hyo is f'ed the more I think about it. If she was only with the school for 3 years, she probably joined around the same time she auditioned for SM in 2001, meaning she'd only have attended WDS up to (and through?) 2004. And now I really am willing to believe that Hyo must have frequently dyed her hair because she's sporting blonde in the the Hyo-Min Little Winners performance, but she had to have had time to grow those bangs out for her 2007 debut, where she was again sporting blonde. It could be that the gap of time between the Little Winners performance we see above and SNSD's debut was, in fact, years, if not at least one year

[juneunhae]

good finds gwI remember looking at the Winners page a long time ago but ooh they have a cyworld too! Was looking around it and I saw one of Hyo's dance oppas!! Ah i do feel kinda creepy recognizing him..hahah

[juneunhae]

PIC SPAM ALERT!!!

Hyo- Winners timeline!!
Earliest pics??

[greywing]

Ahahaha, I recognize him from the the MTV episode. I've always wondered if it was him that Hyo had a crush on . . .

I had been thinking that Winners came first since the article said that she was scouted through pics on the Internet, right? It would make sense if it WDS came first because Winners has so many ties to the big talent agencies (and it was said that Hyo was introduced to the school through her Latin dance teacher, right?), but now I'm doubting myself because only 3 years training there? Here's the link again.But that time line means that Hyo joined WDS around 2001-ish and left some time 2004-ish, possibly late 2004 which would put her close to 2005, which may make sense if SM was shuffling around girls and trying to put them in groups to debut and then spent lots and lots of time changing their minds. But still . . . I always got the impression that WDS took up a much bigger chunk of her life

[juneunhae]

Yeah! the article did make it seem like she was scouted from the internet. I guess audition stories are never reliable?? :D

I did some snooping around and there's a message from June 2005 in the messageboard asking for the title of a song that Hyo danced to in some high school event ..so could it be possible she was still with them until then?
Hmm I'm not sure if you saw the video since that user got removed from YT but there was one of Hyo performing to a hiphop song at an outdoor Winners thing and I'm pretty sure she was older than the HyoMin performance cos she had her piercings :D unless my mind is playing tricks and I'm imagining stuff lol (should've saved that video >.Yes I love Hyo in glasses too!!SO PRETTY

[anonymous]

Don't know if you've seen this, but yeah lots of vids on this yt channel has ones that the ssf channel doesnt..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5t74uMEy-A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PEILHFt8vI&feature=related==?> xmas concert.

[greywing]

If only I could read and understand Chinese! But thank you for the links. =)