After much deliberation, Royal Entertainment has decided to offer contracts to the following rookies:
Wang Kayee
Lu Han
Kim Wonshik
Kim Kibum
Lee Sunmi
Please look over and sign the contract in the next 48 hours. Be sure to read about workshops and achievements on the achievements blog. Get to know your fellow Royal trainees, because you're going to be spending a lot of time with them from now on!
Thank you to everyone who participated for making this such a tough decision! Keep working and don't give up; your time will come soon.
▪▪▪ { ❛ like the way you work it — [ royal audition ]
SONG : [ Blackstreet - No Diggity ( Acoustic Cover ) ]
DANCE : [ O.C.A.D - Muse ]
sunyoung is standing outside of the royal entertainment building entrance, guitar strapped to her back and heart pounding feverishly against her chest. she doesn't know how long she's been out here just peering up at the sign, making sure that yes, this is all real because it hasn't even been five months since her leave from kt and yet here she was, casted once again -- but this time for a different company. the company that she originally wanted even before her former company made their way into her life.
it's like deja vu all over again as she follows the woman through the halls, widened eyes taking in all of the details in her surroundings, even though she's been here before thanks to the tour. the royal building isn't as luxurious looking as the kt headquarters, which shows off how much money they had on every inch of every wall, ceiling, and tile. that wasn't a bad thing, though -- it looks like something that she expects from one of the big three entertainment companies. sunyoung ignores the looks she's getting because of her height in the heels, some people probably thinking that she's doing too much, and instead focuses on the many trainees inside the practice rooms, trying to get a look at them. at one point she thinks she spots jihyun, and is tempted to scream profanities and something along the lines of 'holy shit i'm gonna fucking die qri give me strength' at her but decides against it -- sunyoung needs to actually impress these people now, and doing that would most likely hurt her chances at passing; no one wants a crazy little bat in their company.
it doesn't take long before the woman leads her to one of the practice rooms at the end, surrounded by other nervous people that she could only assume were other royal hopefuls that were scouted at the camp. "they'll be with you quite shortly. as soon as your name is called, walk into that door and your audition will start. good luck!" sunyoung tries to return the bright grin that the lady gives her, but finds it hard to when she feels her hands starting to shake slightly. the clicking of heels symbolize perky receptionist walking away and the brunette almost falls into the seat, letting out a nervous breathe as she tries to ignore the anxiety that's thriving in the air. instead, she unsheathes her guitar from it's case on her back, hoping that it would give her some sort of relief--
"park sunyoung!" shit.
all eyes are on her when she stands up after her name is called, and slowly makes her way into the practice room where the judges reside. ( her lips pull into a smile when she passes by a girl who whispers a "hwaiting!" her way before she enters. ) she can feel her stomach flipping and turning, tumbling when she makes her way over to the pink x taped some feet away in front of the judges table, and brown hues glance around to look into the eyes of each one of the people who are looking back at her with poker faces when she's situated. on the bright side of things, so jisub wasn't there to judge her as well, and she finds herself relaxing just a smidge.
they're anticipating, waiting for her to introduce herself and say something, and the girl forces a wide smile upon her face -- tries to hide the fact that her knees could give way any second right now. after a bow, she starts to talk.
"annyeonghaseyo ~ i'm park sunyoung. i'm currently twenty one years old, and today i will be singing an acoustic cover of blackstreet's no diggity, and will be dancing to o.c.a.d.'s muse. before i start, i'd like to thank you for even giving me this opportunity to audition, and i hope that you watch and listen to me perform well!"
a nod from the man in the middle says that she can start whenever she's ready, and sunyoung straps the guitar in place around her body, pulling her lucky guitar pick out of her pocket. after she switches her weight to the right side of her foot and a good strum of the frets later -- just to make sure it was in tune ( even though she tuned it 827392 times in day and hours prior ) -- she's ready. there's a little bit of silence as she looks down at the guitar, hand hovering over the frets a bit until foot tapping is heard, and she starts to strum. the tune was something she had been working on for a while now just for fun, maybe to upload to youtube one day -- until she got the phonecall. sunyoung had practiced this for hours and hours upon end, making sure every note and sound was nothing less than perfect so that she could impress the judges. and as skillful hands make their way up and down the instrument, she begins to hum the beginning tune of the song, her head nodding to the the beat.
It's going down, fade to Blackstreet
The homies got at me, collab' creations
Bump like acne, no doubt
I put it down, never slouch
As long as my credit can vouch
A dog couldn't catch me ass out
Tell me who can stop when Dre makin' moves
Attracting honeys like a magnet
Giving 'em eargasms with my mellow accent
Still moving this flavor
With the homies Blackstreet and Teddy
The original rump shakers
her voice is low and soft as she tries out the rap part, though her 'rap' seems nothing more than talking to the music. it's not horrible but definietly not the best, though she thinks the attitude that's laced within the words would probably help her get some points, if at all. her head is raised and she's facing forward, though her eyes aren't focused on the judges -- instead, it's focused on the beige color of the wall behind them, enough to imitate eye contact with out actually looking at them. when she reaches the end of the verse the guitar trails off, and there's a second of silence before she starts to sing.
Shorty get down, good Lord
Baby got 'em open all over town
Strictly biz, she don't play around
Cover much ground, got game by the pound
Getting paid is her forte
Each and every day, true player way
I can't get her out of my mind ( well ~ )
I think about the girl all the time ( well well ~ )
it's not too long before sunyoung's voice fills up the once quiet space, the warm tone reverberating off of the the walls of the practice room as she sings. she has a shaky start, something she knew would happen because her nerves seem to affect her voice more than her body -- the extra vibrato that makes itself known within in the tune isn't overpowering, but it's not hard to miss as well. regardless, the girl ignores it as if it didn't happen and continues to sing, eyes fluttering closed, only opening for a split second to gaze at her fingers sliding up and down the fret board, making sure she hit the right notes. her expression changes into that of a funny one once she comes to the 'well~' part, brown hues widening as if she were shocked while her head swiftly turns to face the judges as she lets out the low note; imitating the same expression again when the words come up again in the next line.
the point of this song -- or, the reason why she chose this particular song and an acoustic version of it, instead of the original -- was for her, mostly, to show off her control that she trained for months on while she was in kt. much like her personality, sunyoung's voice was loud, powerful, and raw without even trying -- belting notes wasn't that hard of a task for her as well. but all of these traits didn't necessarily make for a good singer, and she learned that the hard way with her prior training. her eyebrows furrow as she continues to sing, the nervous vibrato fading away in her voice as confidence starts to replace it as she tries to keep the soulful tune that the original version of the song was known for. sunyoung is extra careful of those high notes, especially when she gets to the chorus -- she was known to have a tendency to strain in order to get those out -- but now she floating them, pulling back the power in order to make it sound more pretty, more appealing.
the second verse is filled with small vocal riffs, something that she's added to the song on her own -- and by the time she gets to them, sunyoung has enough confidence to hit them well and to make sure she doesn't get carried away with them as well. her body starts to rock with the beat that her toe is tapping as she gets into the song, but the confidence grows as she ends the verse as her voice grows in power ( slightly, very slightly ) and goes from small plucks on the guitar to long, melodic strums. the girl almost feels herself pushing to hit the high notes but she falls back, allowing herself to not let those particular notes be as loud and mighty as the others. after a couple of "hey yo hey yo hey yo hey yo ~" sentences, the song ends and her eyes slowly open as a satisfied grin appears on her face. sunyoung bows, showing her thanks to the judges before the guitar is taken off of her shoulders, and she shuffles over to the wall to place it there temporarily and hands the boy next to the computer her cd that held her song that she was going to dance to. "it's the only track on the cd," she whispers before taking her spot back on the x once more.
sunyoung doesn't think of the silence that fills the room once more, she doesn't think about how her feet are starting to hurt by standing so long in these tall wedges that she didn't wear often, doesn't let all of this get to her -- instead, she focuses on the high that she's slowly coming down from after her singing, and shakes her both of her legs one at a time in order to get the nerves that were slowly creeping their way up before taking her pose, head facing downward.
the music starts soon after, and she's thankful that the computer boy can read body language because it doesn't give her much time to think about her nerves, or how sexy the choreography was and how she was slightly embarrassed to do this in front of the judges -- instead, as she locks her legs to the beat and turns to sway her hips side to side, popping them soon after -- she thinks about balancing herself in these heels, and thanks whatever deity up above that kt had so many dancing in heels workshops that she took while she was there. the memory of her tripping and falling almost flat on her face during the first couple of sessions has a grin blooming on her features as she twists and turns, helping her emotions.
her moves are swift and trained, not as precise as they were a couple of months ago but still leaps and bounds better than where she was eight months ago, or even a year ago. it doesn't take her long to forget that she's in the middle of an audition and sees herself in a practice room by herself late into the night, no one else but her in the room and it allows her to get into the zone, facial expressions mimicking the assurance that she had in her moves. it was almost an outer-body experience of some kind, because this wasn't sunyoung. she didn't feel like sunyoung, someone who was embarrassed when doing anything remotely sexy in front of people whom she didn't know all that well and was clumsy and reckless. with every slinky roll of her body, tick of her hip and toss of her hair, she felt different -- more confident, yes, but ... different.
is this what beyonce meant when she said she turns into sasha fierce on stage?
regardless, the feeling was nice and helped finish the choreography down to the floor work, ignoring the very small slip of her foot as she arched her back and dropped her head dramatically before actually going on all fours on the floor. as long as she didn't acknowledge it the judges wouldn't know what happened. before she knew it, sunyoung turned her head swiftly to the side and the music cut off -- her audition was over. quickly standing up on her feet she bowed to the line of people, a small, "thank you for watching me and giving me a chance!" escaping past her lips. gathering her things in her hands and plucking her guitar off the wall, she walked out of the door of the practice room and into the hallway of people once more, who all looked at her with expectant eyes as another name was called. setting her things down on one of the benches, all sunyoung did was mouth a "ho - ly - shit," to the crowd before flopping down on the seat next to her things.
the easiest part of the auditions had come and gone, now the hardest part was to wait for the results.
There was one tiny problem: Royal specialized in vocals. Hwayoung still thought she couldn't sing. But then she remembered a friend telling her that most idol groups have at least one rapper so she might have the chance to get accepted. Plus, she had observed that most rappers in Royal were male. Let me change that, Hwayoung thought determinedly. “Now what song do I do?” she mused to herself. Her eyes then went wide at a sudden realization. What should she wear? She quickly got up from her bed and headed to her closet. She opened it and went through it; pushing hanged clothes from side to side and throwing folded clothes on the floor when she didn’t like it. What do people usually wear when auditioning for one of their dream companies? Finally after what seemed like hours she was able to pick her outfit: a simple gold shiny tank top underneath a white loose polo and green shorts, finished off by white shoes, a brown bracelet and a long necklace. When she was satisfied she took her phone and scrolled down her music playlist, searching for the perfect song that would suit her style for the audition. When she found it, she smiled, and then she started practicing.
♚♚♚
It was D-day; and Hwayoung was a nervous wreck. She was standing outside the building of Royal Ent and she was debating on whether to enter or not. Backing out was cowardly but really Hwayoung couldn’t care less. She felt like was going to faint if someone didn’t get her out of there. But then she realized that she would be letting people who believe in her down. She would be letting herself down for not even trying. It would be a waste of her sweat, tears and efforts if she’d back down. She had already reached this far, and it would go down the drain if she’d turn around and walk away. So with a huff and a silent cheer to herself, she walked to the front of the building and opened the double doors that led to what would be her future- if she were to succeed.
♚♚♚
Now Hwayoung really wished she backed out while she could. First, she got lost finding the right room for the auditions, and then she tripped due to her legs feeling like jelly at the thought of actually auditioning. Luckily, a staff had found her and had helped her get to the right location.
And that was where Hwayoung was right now: in a corridor along with people waiting for their shot at their dream. Some of them looked calm; being able to greet people with smiles and encouraging words. Others just plugged their earphones in and listened to music, trying their hardest not to break down from nervousness. There were also some who were practicing their performance, and watching them do well made Hwayoung doubt herself. Was she going to be able to pass? Would she screw up? Would she forget the lyrics to the song? Would her voice crack? The song she was going to perform was a mix of rap and vocals, and there was a high note near the end. Would she be able to reach it?
Hwayoung took a seat on a vacant chair and tried to calm her nerves. She took her phone from her bag and plugged in her earphones. She looked for the song and practiced one last time. The person sitting next to her had heard her practice, and she had told her that she did well. She smiled and thanked her for the compliment before releasing a sigh. She had stiffened when a boy went out of the dance studio and a rep had called out something she was sort of dreading to hear:
“Ryu Hwayoung!”
Hwayoung stood up and begrudgingly went to the dance studio. When she entered she saw the panel that was going to decide whether to give her a chance or to crush her dreams. She bowed at them in full ninety degrees before giving her phone to one of the staff there, telling him to press play when she signalled him to.
She stood at the middle of the room, in front of the panel, not saying anything at first. Her heart was beating so fast she swore everyone in the room could hear it. Her hands were sweaty and twitching and her legs felt like they would give away any minute. “Hi,” she managed to say. “I’m Ryu Hwayoung and I’ll be singing and rapping for you today."
She took a deep breath, trying to calm her heart. You can do this Hwa.
"Alright Hwayoung, whenever you're ready."
Hwayoung closed her eyes. This is it. Don't screw up. Just have fun. She opened them and nodded at the staff. The music started playing and as instinct she started to vaguely move to the song.
haru haru shiganeul doedollyeo
hana hana ni mameul gochireo
na shiganeul geoseulleo gago shipeo
shijakhaetdeon geunal mankeumman
niga utdeon geunal kkajiman
Hwayoung was panting as she finished the song. Her voice fortunately didn't crack during her performance, and she had hit the high note without mistakes. She bowed to judges, using it to hide her smile. She had made it through the performance without any mistakes and she was proud of herself. She stood up straight and waited for the panel to say something. She had considered a lot of rap songs for this audition but finally settled into the one she performed since she deemed it appropriate. It had the equal amount of rap and vocals in it, and it was one of her favourites.
The staff had handed her phone back and she bowed her thanks. She then faced the panel. “I would really like to take this opportunity to thank you for giving me a chance to audition. Thank you for finding me worthy of your time.” She bowed one more time before exiting the dance studio. That was it. She had done her best. She just hoped that her best was good enough.
ROYAL AUDITION - 140808
dance / song: key vs english
waiting is horrible.
just sitting there in the hallway of royal entertainment as his chest eats itself up from nerves and hyoyeon and jieun offer quiet words of encouragement or soft pats on the arm -- it's maddening.
"kiki, stop worrying," the sound of hyoyeon's nickname for him snaps him out of his nervous trance. "don't chew your nails, you don't want them to look bad, do you?" she says, reaching out and lowering key's hand from his mouth.
"you'd be nervous too," he grumbles, but he does as she says, crossing his arms across his chest.
"exactly. i was nervous, oppa. when i auditioned for sphere. i know how you feel," hyoyeon says, and key scoffs. he knows she's right, but that doesn't mean he'll admit it.
"i'm sure you'll do great, key," jieun says from his other side, laying a hand on his arm. "there's no way they can say no to you!"
key offers a small smile, but he still doesn't fully believe her words. even so, he does appreciate her peppiness and confidence in him.
"thank you guys for being here," he says, looking first at jieun and then turning his head to look at hyoyeon. "it means a lot, really. and i know you both have busy schedules, so really..."
hyoyeon smiles and lays a hand on his knee, cutting him off. "oppa, don't worry about it. we're here because we want to be. and also because you'd probably tear all your hair out if you were alone," she adds, and key can't help but laugh a little.
"kim kibum!"
the sound of the male voice has the smile dropping from kibum's face, and he looks desperately between hyoyeon and jieun, who seem to share a glance before standing up together and pulling him with them. they say more words of encouragement, but it's hyoyeon's that really get to him: "you're the almighty key, oppa. go in there and show them how great you are."
at those words, key forces himself to stop for a few seconds -- just long enough to take a deep, calming breath. and even though he's still nervous, even though his heart still feels like it's about to pound right out of his chest, he's in control. with a swift smile and nod in hyoyeon and jieun's direction, he pulls his phone out of his pocket as he walks over to the man by the practice room door.
however, he hesitates as he passes by a girl with black hair sitting in the hallway across from the door. "good luck," she says, and key stares at her for a moment. why is she wishing him luck? they're competitors, aren't they? but another look at her face tells him that she means it -- she really wants him to do well. he's just opening his mouth to reply (though with what, he doesn't know) when a small noise from the royal employee at the door has him jumping back to attention.
"i'm sorry," he says, bowing his head in apology as he forces himself to forget the girl as he moves over to the man.
his screen is already unlocked and set on the small playlist he made especially for this audition. he hands it to the man and asks him to "just press play" when he's ready. moving further into the practice room, key looks at the table of judges. he doesn't recognize any of them, but that's to be expected. he had known from the beginning that so jisub himself wasn't going to judge these auditions, and it was highly unlikely that key would be on speaking terms with royal's casting director.
"hello," he says once he's in the middle of the room, going into a quick ninety-degree bow. "i'm kim kibum, but i go by key. first, i'll be dancing. it's my own choreography," he explains. "then i'll be singing a solo from the musical i'm currently starring in: bonnie and clyde."
after a nod to the man with his phone, key settles himself into the starting position of the choreography, with his head and shoulders slumping down and his entire body loose and relaxed. the song begins, playing over the speakers to which the royal employee had connected his phone. the music begins with a few rhythmic tick-tocking noises, and key doesn't move for the first four beats of the song. as the lyrics begin, he slowly lifts his head and begins to roll his shoulders, as if stretching out sore muscles after sleeping for too long.
as the singers repeat the same line again, key starts moving some more, rolling his body as if doing a simple dance as one might do at a party or in a club. the song suddenly bursts into its first verse, and key's body rolls grow quicker and more intense, and soon he's adding in movements with his arms as well. he has to fight a smile as his nerves start to fade away, only to return as waves of excitement.
the body rolls and smooth arm movements turn sharper as the lyrics end and are replaced by an instrumental break, and key revels in the sensation of smoothly moving from one move to the next without even having to worry about forgetting anything, since he's the one who came up with it in the first place, and he's been practicing practically nonstop for the past forty-eight hours on top of that.
after withdrawing from the nova auditions, kibum's been rather insecure about his own choreography, particularly his enjoyment of doing girlish dances. he hasn't practiced or performed any of his own choreography since then, but this opportunity from royal made him think of one dance that he thought would be perfect.
the song is by a girl group, and not one that is known for its dances: in fact, this song in particular isn't even well-known; it's one of the non-title tracks from an old album (though it was new at the time key designed the dance) and has probably never been performed live by the artist. the original choreography key made for it was meant for his dance crew, luminosity, to do as a group. however, the crew broke up before key got to teach them the dance, and he hasn't used it since, though he's never forgotten the moves or the song.
when he was recreating the choreography for one person, he tried to incorporate little things to make it fit him alone, as opposed to all five members of the dance crew. after he finished, he showed it to hyoyeon, taemin, and fei (though fei had to watch through a video message on skype), and they all said that it looked as though he had combined some moves that are traditionally associated with girlish dances with moves that seem more masculine. that hadn't been his goal, but after thinking about it for a while, he found that it was perfect. kim kibum, the perfect blend of masuline and feminine. he thinks it suits him. he wants to show the judges not only his talent, but also who he is, and this dance is perfect for that.
he feels like the chorus is the perfect summary of his choreography. while fei's dances have always had smoother moves and transitions and taemin's tend to be more popping and locking, key likes to think that his choreography is a healthy mixture of the two. even better, this song is from a girl group, but since it doesn't have a generic dance or practically any other connotations with it in society, he felt that he could do whatever he wanted with it. because of that, he was able to make it his own, and he feels like he's showcasing that now.
shortly after the second chorus, there's a pause in the music where one of the members of the group shouts a sentence in english: "hey! what do you wanna get this time, mr. collector?" out of habit, key mouths it along with her, partly because it's a bad habit of his to lip sync along with lyrics as he dances.
right after the line, the song goes into an electronic dance break. the original choreography key designed told a story of marionettes rebelling against their puppet master, and the dance break was the climax of that story. however, he made a few drastic changes to that when he redesigned the dance for his audition. he kept a lot of the individual moves (mostly because they look cool and he's good at doing them), but the story is no longer attached to them, so he worries that a few of them might not make sense. but then he always dispels those thoughts with the insistence that royal's judges probably weren't paying much attention to the choreography's story.
the dance break is filled with popping and locking and moves that are a lot more hiphop-y than the rest of the dance, but since the music stands out so much from the rest of the song, key figured that the dance should too.
after the dance break is a final chorus, much more energetic than the last two, and key throws everything he has into it. he stops holding back his smile for the sake of the dance, and he forgets about the audition, about the people in front of him as his mind goes blissfully blank. he feels nothing but the music, can focus on nothing but the sheer passion and love for dance that courses through him more and more with every beat. his dance has a certain sassiness to it now, and he could laugh at how giddy he feels right now.
as the song ends and he breathes himself back into reality, a single thought pops into his head. oh shit, how am i gonna sing now?
fortunately, he thought ahead. between the two songs on his playlist is a fifteen-second track of nothing, to give himself time to breathe and prepare himself for the singing portion.
"next i'll be singing my solo from the musical bonnie and clyde," he says, thankful that he's accustomed enough to that dance that it doesn't take him too long to recover his breath.
he knows his fifteen seconds are up when the instrumental begins. it's a simple guitar strum, and key takes that chance to clear his throat and take a breath before he has to sing.
it's a love song, and even though at the start of his rehearsals, the song was difficult for him, after a month of rigorous rehearsals and lessons with jieun, he managed to get close enough to mastery of it in time for opening night. and the night after he heard about his audition, he and jieun had a last-minute lesson to prepare, in which she had helped him work out the final few kinks in the song.
he remembers opening night, sitting on stage in the bathtub with bonnie's actress -- no, bonnie -- across from him, clyde, or keylyde as his castmates had taken to jokingly referring to him. he imagines that the clock on the wall just behind the judges is bonnie, and he gets himself into character, smiling at "bonnie" and closing or opening his eyes whenever appropriate.
the last note is always difficult for him, since his voice tends to waver, but he manages to hold it out, even though he does go a bit flat near the end. once the song is over, he blinks once at the judges before bowing once again.
even after straightening up, he doesn't move until they tell him he can go, and only then does he cross the room and take his phone back from the employee, bowing once to him and once more to the judges. "thank you for your time," he says before leaving the room in much lighter spirits than he walked in with.
hyoyeon and jieun immediately hail him and demand to know how it went, and key just laughs and assures him it went well. and on their way to the exit, he starts explaining everything to them, from the good things about his dance to the flat note at the end of his song. they both assure him that he'll get in for sure, and for the first time, key manages to believe it.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is it possible for you to give an estimate of how many trainees can get signed this round of auditions? Since Royal has a lower difficulty level, does it mean relatively more soon to be trainees will be signed there?
Not a stupid question, but also not one I can answer~ you'll know about how many are getting in as soon as I do!
