UCLA
Center for East Asian Studies
Korean Youth and Popular Culture
July 16, 1999
The Korea Herald || Korean Youth Culture || News File Index
Teenage dance fever heating up
By Shin Kyung-hwa Staff reporter
On Saturday afternoon, under flashing lights, teenage boys and girls are dancing to the latest pop music. Some are dancing with their bags on. Others are wearing school uniforms. But without caring a bit, they are indulging themselves in dancing to the rhythm. It looks like a nightclub but it's not. The teenagers don't consume alcohol or smoke. Instead, they drink sweet fizzy coke. These dancing boys and girls are having fun at a 'colatheque.'The name colatheque is a hybrid of 'cola' and 'discotheque.' There are some 20 colatheques in the greater Seoul. At weekends, singers often come to perform a live music show for the young students. Sometimes, the youth themselves perform various live events such as plays and music concerts on stage. High school clubs can stage their live performance at a low cost.
'Leisure Colatheque,' located in Shinchon, Seoul, is just such a place.
"It is aimed at teenagers who want to let off steam but cannot find how and where," said Chung Min-soo, vice manager of the Leisure Colatheque, which opened last December. "High school students in the United States or Japan have places for their own activity. But we hardly find such entertainment spaces," he added.
Chung, a fashion model and lecturer at a model institute, said, "Teens show various characteristics. They need to be free to express their individuality." The main visitors are high school students and most of the part-time employees are also teenagers who sell soda water and work as disc jockeys. "This place is for teenagers. They feel daunted when college students come to enjoy. That's one of the reasons I employed teens as part-timers," Chung said.
The students at colatheques do prefer to be with their peers. "I feel comfortable with lots of friends in this place," a girl high school student said. "It's nice to enjoy and stay long without much money."
Whether they are good dancers or not, teenagers need a place to dance. And the public facilities, not the commercial capital, should accept them," says Kim Hyuk-jin, a researcher of Korea Institute for Youth Development.
Korean teenagers' popular culture in the 1990's has taken on a new twist - a passion for dance. Teenagers these days typically aspire to be dancers supporting a singer on stage. In Seoul's Taehangno district, it is common to see groups of young people dancing on the streets with loud music blaring in the background.
The dance culture of the 1990s was transformed by the combination of television and a rap group called 'Seo Taeji and Boys,' Kim explains. "The teens of the 1990s are influenced by visual media such as television, so they admire entertainers. Seo Tae-ji's songs and dance greatly affected the young students in the same way Elvis Presley developed rock and roll in the 1950s. Nowadays, those who cannot dance don't belong to a peer group," the researcher said. "Dance and music have become their ordinary life."
With this development of young-generation culture, Kim is inclined to sing the praises of the colatheque, where teenagers freely dance and enjoy themselves.
"Nightclub-like colatheques offer an escape for teenagers who are burdened by the grind of preparing for the college entrance examination," Kim says. "The colatheque gives them a chance to let off steam. Teenagers are banned from nightclubs, so colatheques give them a chance to dance to music with a strong beat in a lively atmosphere."
But the atmosphere in the colatheque is far from exclusive, as there is no pressure on the teens to dance well. "Taehangno is the place only for good dancers who can show their performance to the onlookers. Some dancing students even have fan clubs. But poor dancers who are eager to dance but shy of being in front of the public go to the colatheque, which covers them with darkness and flashing lights," he says.
The colatheque may end up also providing teens with an opportunity to create their own individual culture, according to Kim. For example, some students go to the clubs wearing school uniforms. Kim, however, worries about the prospect of the colatheques not being controlled very well. "I hope the operators continue to ban the sale of alcohol and cigarettes and not open late into the night. These clubs should be careful not to make a mistake like the PC rooms."
The PC rooms, where people can use personal computers at a low cost, were aimed at helping familiarize the public with the Internet. But now it is more popular because of "Starcraft," a computer game. The teens often sit up all night playing the game, sometimes until the next morning.
Kim also suggests that places like the colatheque are free to the public. "Some cities like Kimhae or Ilsan, are already starting to plan to make a park or a district where teenagers can perform once a week." Kim says. "If we really think of the teenagers, it's better to offer them free places. The public facilities in local society should join in helping the teen build their culture."
Copyright 1999 The Korea Herald
