Brewing in Seattle’s vast music scene is a small, but mighty K-pop (Korean pop) fan base, brought together by niche, tightknit communities. Part of this is THE KOMPANY, a University of Washington-based K-pop dance club founded in 2017 by student Eric Tang.
A few weeks ago, when Tang, 20, heard that K-pop boy band A.C.E was coming to Seattle to perform at the Neptune Theatre, he reached out to a mutual contact to see if the group would be interested in collaborating for a busking performance.
K-pop performances are notorious for being tightly curated and managed, for every detail to be perfect, and because of that, fan interactions are fairly limited. But busking has become part of A.C.E’s identity. Donghun, Jun, Wow, Kim Byeongkwan and Chan make up the five-member group that officially debuted in 2017 under Beat Interactive. In the beginning, they performed frequently on the streets around South Korea. The first performance they uploaded to YouTube, a choreographed dance to BTS songs “I Need You” and “Dope,” has garnered more than 5 million views.
A.C.E has since gained a global audience, but they still busk regularly to connect with fans and stay true to their roots — they even wear the same schoolboy uniforms they wore in their early busking days.
Even knowing that, Tang was surprised when the band got back to him and agreed to busk with his student dance crew at Red Square on the University of Washington campus the day before their scheduled Wednesday night performance at the Neptune Theatre.
From that point on, the event quickly came together.
With such short notice, some members of THE KOMPANY had to cancel flights and plans to leave UW for winter break. But for an opportunity of this caliber, it was worth it, they said.