OneTeam: MS 158's K-pop Dance Troupe

Alright. Who likes K-pop? Most will say no, but a handful will say yes. But did you know that our school had a K-pop dance troupe? Introducing OneTeam. But you might ask, what is it even about? So in this article, I will talk to you about OneTeam, what they are about, and stuff about them. 

2022-2023

At first, OneTeam wasn’t so permanent or anything fancy like that. They were inspired to do it after an ACC meeting where we saw a performance of a cultural Chinese or Indian dance. So, 2 groups formed. 

1. Shut Down - Blackpink

2. Not for Sale - ENHYPEN

I was part of the second one, along with some other 8th graders. On the other hand, there was Shut Down, in which the group had 7 people, but quickly broke apart into 2 groups, which is 

1. Pink Venom - Blackpink

2. Tomboy - (G)I-DLE

The second one is the original OneTeam, but back then, it was just Cynthia Li of class 607 (22-23), and Taylor Ma, also from 607 (22-23). Back then, it was just the 2 of them practicing together, as I was still in Not for Sale, and others unincluded. On the other hand, the 8th graders from 2 suggested that Not for Sale was too hard, so they fell out of interest. This made them change to Indian Dance. However, I didn’t want to do Indian dance. Back then, I wasn’t a BLINK (fan of Blackpink), so I decided to join Cynthia and Taylor because they were my classmates.

When I met them in the group, they told me that they were trying their best to recruit some of their classmates (which is also my classmate, since I was in the same class as them). And after a few more practice days, we had enough people for it. They were (in chronological order of when the member joined):

Cynthia Li (Leader)

Taylor Ma (Co-Leader)

Tobias Kang (Me)

Christiana Raji

Chloe Pak

After the recruitment effort’s success, we didn’t last another session until we changed dances. This time, it was to Nxde by (G)I-DLE. And that lasted for a good time, and we finished learning it in around 8 weeks or so, which is great. But we didn’t want to waste any time, so we wanted to try doing another dance, which was OMG by NewJeans, then Blue Hour by TxT, but decided that there wasn’t enough time to learn it all, so we decided to do not do a second dance. 

Performances all went well, and it gave me embarrassing memories, like when I did a very girly dance in front of the whole school, which had around 1000 students and teachers watching me. I… kind of regret it, but it was fun, and I got sesame chicken. It was also very fun to do after the state exam because I was NOT mentally stable during that time.

2023-2024

Now, this was a hassle. I didn’t think about this... until November when Ms. Cheng asked us to perform for the Lunar New Year community performance. It was time to recruit again, since... well since why not?

After this recruitment, our group grew from 5 to 13. We had too many that we even had to split into Team A) a boy group and Team B) a girl group. I’ll list names below. (The ones with red text are people also from last year.)

Tobias Kang (Leader) (Me) (A)

Erin Huang (Leader) (A)

Nicole Tso (Co-leader) (A & B)

Christiana Raji (A)

Chloe Pak (A & B)

Abigail Mo (B)

Leah Park (A & B)

Aira Lee (B)

Moa Lee (B)

We were also able to get backups, just in case stuff fell apart. But have you noticed something? Yes, the leaders changed. Taylor went to Hunter, so she couldn’t participate. However, the people didn’t change in a snap. First, Erin, Nicole, and I were co-leaders. Make sense. But Cynthia has been a little inactive, so I thought, maybe I should suggest leader changes to Cynthia and Ms. Cheng. So, lo and behold, the leaders changed. Erin is the dance teacher (along with Nicole) while I manage the technical stuff, like sending emails and talking to teachers. 

Anyway, this year, the plan is that there is going to be an I AM performance by team B during the Lunar New Year Community Performance. Team A is planning to perform for the AAPI month celebration performance, which will be sometime in May. So stay tuned, K-pop stans! 

P.S. There are other groups, and there are people doing DRAMA by Aespa and LOVE DIVE by IVE.