Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Nguyen.
Amy, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started dancing fairly late in life… I started my freshman year of high school with my after-school dance club, Take A Bow (TAB). We did some pep rallies and school talent shows. But it wasn’t until my junior year at Plano Senior High School when I joined Dancing For a Cause (DFC) that everything really took off and I starting growing into the person I am today, a KPOP dance teacher and event coordinator.
I have been listening to KPOP since 2006, I fell in love with all the dances, the beats, the fashion, and the KPOP scene. I would learn the dances in my spare time and the other girls and I in DFC would just teach each other during our rehearsal breaks. When DFC opened its studio in 2015, I was there almost every day just dancing to KPOP and teaching random people who wanted to learn KPOP and that is when the studio owner wanted to bring KPOP to the studio. KPOP was becoming more and more popular through the years and the owner thought it would be a nice way to bring KPOP into the dance scene…and so March 1st of 2016, DFC announced its first KPOP class. I taught for a year and some change at DFC and decided to take a break. However, it was quite conflicting teaching the original choreography to KPOP songs, despite educating my students on who the choreographers were, where they are from, and what their accomplishments were. Having to learn the choreography and research who the choreographers were, was quite tedious. It was like writing a 5-page essay with a detailed work cited page every week. So, I decided to end classes for a while. During my hiatus with my KPOP classes, I started working with MISFIT Dance Camp, a company run by husband and wife, Anthony and Cory Frenette, wanted to bring the industry of dance to Texas and grow our dance community here. There I got to meet a few of the choreographers for the KPOP songs that I love so much. I met everyone from Rie Hata, who is from Japan, she choreographed for NCT, BTS, Zico. I met Sienna Lalau, the mind behind some iconic groups such as BLACKPINK, BTS, TREASURE, and Ian Eastwood, he has choreographed for a legend in KPOP, Taemin. It brought back so much of my joy for teaching hearing how their thought process for creating the choreography, how the KPOP agencies would reach out to them and how the process from start to finish works. Speaking with them really inspired me to get back into teaching KPOP. I discussed with some of the choreographers about my classes and some thought that it was nice, because a lot of non-dancers love KPOP but want to learn how to dance. They showed me appreciation for going through and explaining to my class that I was not the original choreographer and explaining who the original choreographer is and their accomplishments. I decided to take up teaching KPOP again and I now teach KPOP on Fridays at Fenton’s Dance Studio in Plano at 7PM and on Wednesdays at the Live Arts Conservatory near the Galleria at 8:30PM.
During that whole time, I was still an event coordinator. I mainly coordinate jams, essentially a dance battle but also a way for dancers to showcase their growth and the fruits of their training, I mainly assisted in planning, check in, and ran some of the events for the Dallas dance scene. Such as, Break Yo’Self Foo, Urban Movement Festival (held in Downtown Plano), FREAKOUT, The Community Project, and many more. I always tell people who ask about my events is that each event will always be like making pancake to me. The first pancake always turns out the ugliest…there wasn’t enough batter or it turns out burnt, basically everything that can go wrong with the first pancake happens…however, with each pancake that I make, it becomes more of that beautiful golden brown and perfect circle. I feel like I have perfected the art of running a jam…albeit there might always be some hiccups the day of but nothing a little quick thinking can’t fix.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I feel like it could have been a bit smoother but I wouldn’t change it if I had to do it again. Having to coordinate my KPOP schedule with my work schedule and when I would have to plan events as well, that would take some time away from my KPOP schedule.
With KPOP, it’s not just about learning the choreography. In my class, we do formations and transitions too so that everyone can get a KPOP experience. To be able to perform the songs just as their favorite KPOP stars do. It takes a while for me to make formations and transitions because if a KPOP group only has 5 members but I have 11 people show up to class, I would have to think of a way to rework the formation and transition or even make up different formations and transitions to include everyone. With time, I have gotten a bit faster, but it’s still hard sometimes.
As for event planning, for me, I feel like it’s different every time. Each of the events that I planned in the past help prepare me for an event in the future. I always make a note of something that went wrong at a past event so that in case it happens at a future event, we will be prepared for it.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
For events, I think I am currently most known for Underground Movement Festival. It takes place twice a year, if not three times a year, in Downtown Plano in McCall Plaza. The City of Plano invited my friend, Daniel Choi, who mainly goes by Choi, to create a dance event that the public will enjoy. Choi invited me and a few others to be part of his team that helps plan the event from beginning to end as well as working the event the day of. I mainly run the front desk, which consists of checking in dancers (the battlers and the performers), taking money, and making sure everyone that steps foot on stage signs a liability form. From there I go into making the brackets for the battles.
For KPOP, I think it’s the fact that I teach the original choreography and make my own transitions and formations. I sometimes to KPOP mashups as well and work hard to blend each original choreographies into each other to make it look like that is how it was meant to be. There are also other times when I would ask my friend Andy Yu, a musician here in Dallas, to cut and mix some songs for me so that I can get the best parts of the choreography put in one.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking.
I think everyone should take a risk, if possible, I think a life without risk sometimes might be boring. I took a risk to continue to do dance (in general), event planning, and teach KPOP against my parents’ wishes. Being a child of immigrant parents, they came here to give us a better life and have a good stable job. My parents were never the tiger parents that most people think of when they think of Asian parents. They never forced me to study to be a doctor or a lawyer, but they did want me to have a stable income. They don’t like that I work as a receptionist during the day and teach KPOP and throw jams on the side. They think that I’m working too much to live when I teach KPOP and throw jams because I love it. I love being able to interact with people who love the same things that I do, KPOP and dance.
Though it’s not a big risk, I decided to keep dance in my life against my parents’ wishes and despite my parents not supporting much of my events or KPOP, they have stopped nagging me about it. They are happy that I’m happy.
Pricing:
- KPOP hour at Fenton’s Dance Factor: $10 drop ins
- KPOP at Live Arts Conservatory: $20 drop ins
- Underground Movement Festival: $10/person to battle, $0 to spectate
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_amynnguyen/
Image Credits
Ramon Grande
