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ni-ki's interview with news1
(part 1)
👤: please introduce yourself
🐥: i'm enhypen ni-ki. our team doesn’t have official positions but i'm called a member who cares a bit more about dancing than others member. (laughs) i'm the youngest of the team, also the maknae
👤: you're well known for your dancing skills. how did you get started with dance?
🐥: when i was little, my dad played michael jackson music videos for me and that’s when i first became interested in dancing. i started just copying the dances and learning by my own but then i really wanted to learn properly so i went to a dance academy near my house for about 10 years. i learned various dance styles there. dance just became a part of my everyday life since then. later, there was a choreographer i really wanted to meet in another area so i went there and i guess they saw potential in me. fortunately, that choreographer was working as shinee's performance director at that time and looking for SHINee Kids dancers. they chose me and said i matched well with Key sunbaenim so i was given the opportunity to perform with him
👤: were you also interested in k-pop back then?
🐥: being part of shinee kids was the turning point. i was in 6th grade at that time. after that, i started looking into k-pop more and the more i looked it up, the more i realized how high-quality the whole genre was, it really caught my attention. i felt like this was something i just had to do. so in 8th grade, i took audition, decided right away and came to korea without any hesitation
👤: that's an impressive decision for someone so young. how did your parents react?
🐥: they have been supporting me dancing since i was little. Their mindset was that as long as i didn’t give up, they were okay with whatever i wanted to do. they never once opposed it
👤: moving to a foreign country at such a young age isn’t an easy decision. was there a specific reason you wanted to become a k-pop idol?
🐥: my personality is kind of all-or-nothing. (smiles) if i want to do something, i want to do it right away. if i don’t want to, i just don’t. i'm pretty extreme like that. haha. at that time, i was so focused on this career path that it felt like if i didn’t take action then, i'd miss my chance. and when i heard that the audition program i-land was being prepared, i thought, “i might not get another opportunity like this.” even though I was still inexperienced, i felt like I had to go for it
👤: after came to korea, you trained for just 8 months before joining i-land. was there anything particularly difficult about that time?
🐥: i practiced alone when i was a trainee. the rules even said we weren’t supposed to talk to other trainees so even though it was only 8 months, it was tough. watching the other trainees motivated me and made me want to push myself but once i got there, i had to do everything on my own, find what i lacked alone, no matter how many teachers i had, it was hard because there’s a limit to how much i could learn without any breakthroughs. once i entered i-land, the language barrier became an even bigger challenge. if i had been with other korean members when i was a trainee, it would have been easier but just going to classes wasn’t enough, i struggled with communication. jay hyung was good at japanese and there were other japanese trainees too so they helped me a lot. that was probably the hardest part. also, i had to lead the other trainees through dance on i-land and that came with a lot of pressure. there were moments where i needed to teach or guide others but my korean wasn’t good enough back then so communicating wasn’t easy
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