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| T-ara in the studio practicing |
I’ve
always been a fan of good dance moves accompanying a catchy song, and when they
first came up with the idea of “Dance Versions’ of music videos, they surely
had someone like me in mind! While a Normal Video would cut between face
shots/story supplement intercut with the dance footage, Dance Versions would feature the entire video
with a straight ahead camera focusing only on the choreography)…
One of the first videos I remember
seeing this from was for Morning Musume’s “The Manpower”, eventually, having a dance
version along with the regular PV became a regular thing for them. Soon it
seemed like every musical group that featured dancing also released a dance
only version, and these were ALWAYS the ones I loved above any other versions!
The choreography in the song performance is always an important factor for me,
being able to watch an entire dance session uninterrupted is an addition that
can make me love the song even tenfold more!
I
remember watching the PV (or, as K-pop refers to it, MV) of KARA’s “Wanna”,
and, noting how awesome the snippets of dancing they showed was, went off to
see if they had a dance version of it…sadly, none existed! Luckily I hooked up
with a terrific live performance of the song which was shot at a wider scope,
giving me lots of uncut dance move goodness! Oh how I love those dance moves
for WANNA!
But
sometimes neither the PV or the Live version shows you the entire scope of the
choreography, so the omission of a dance version is really detrimental for
maximum enjoyment of the song! Then I discovered another avenue- PRACTICE DANCE
SESSION VIDEO FOOTAGE!
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| SNSD practice for "Into The New World" |
This is
something that I’ve so far only seen in K-pop (though I’ve been told Johnny
acts have them as well, and who knows who else), the first time I saw it was
for SISTAR and then Girls Generation performing “Into The New World”, and then
while watching SHINee practicing their epic song “Sherlock”, I was blown away
at how EFFECTIVE a practice video could be!!
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| Shinee Practice Video for "Sherlock" Note the same background as SNSD, their SME labelmates |
So as
you’ve all read, I’ve been getting pretty big on T-ARA lately, and though I’ve
liked their song “Lovey Dovey” well enough, I didn’t associate the song with
any kind of catchy dancing. In both the PV and live performances, the camera
edits were either too quick or they didn’t; focus on the girls legs or feet at
the appropriate time for me to see the entire act as a whole…
Enter
the Pratice Session Video! Honestly, as practice session videos are pretty
amateurishly shot, the lighting is dark and the members are sometimes far off,
but the Lovey Dovey video looked intriguing I just HAD to check it out, and was
it intriguing?…WAS IT EVER!
MAN!
Until I saw this Practice Video, I had NO IDEA how much moves, legwork and
footwork went into this song! The girls are literally slippin’ and slidin’ ALL
OVER THAT FLOOR, with enough Foot
Shuffling and Moonwalking to make any Michael Jackson fan proud! I cannot tell
you how many times I watched and re-watched this performance, it. is. so. DARN.
COOL!!!! (for best results, click on the embed and watch on Youtube)
After
watching this enough times that the images were burned into my brain, I went
back and watched the PVs and Live Performances I had of Lovey Dovey, and sure
enough, something’s missing…the edits, crops, and angles are too restricting
for the glory that this song has!
I therefore present this link for the
betterment of all mankind, or at least of all T-ARAfan-kind!
