Fan Movement: Interview with Peruvian K-Pop Dance Group "Dolls"

If you live in Peru, you may have heard of a female dance cover group who call themselves the Dolls. Their names are Rosa (the leader), Ani, Janet, Tania, Wendy, Priscila, Stefanny, and Danissa, and their ages range from late teens to their twenties. These eight girls debuted on May 15, 2011 for the SMTOWN fan reunion in Peru, and performed again for the second fan reunion.

With their skilled dance moves and coordinating costumes, Dolls quickly gained recognition by K-Pop fans in Peru, and were invited to perform for more events held in well-known venues, such as Real Plaza. Thanks to YouTube, their performances, covering the likes of SNSD, f(x), T-ara, and Orange Caramel, have now been viewed by K-Pop fans all over the world! One of Dolls’ members, Ani Sandoval, agreed to discuss the group for Soompi and Soompi Spanish.

How did you girls come together to form Dolls? Were you friends beforehand, or was there an audition process to join?

Rosa and I formed the group with the help of Rodrigo from Chile. There are already two Dolls groups in Chile, in Santiago and Concepciión, and we had the idea to make a third Dolls group here in Perú. So we held an audition to look for girls who like K-Pop and girl groups.

How do you choose a song and how do you practice? What is the process of learning a dance? How long does it take to make a dance performance-ready?

Sometimes we choose the song according to what the members want, by turns. However, some event organizers will tell us what K-Pop group they want us to cover.

Usually one of us learns the dance so that person can teach the others. Most of the time, we practice in a park on Sundays, because it’s pretty calm and there aren’t many distractions. The practice can last three to four hours because we only practice together once a week, but the members try to improve the choreography at home in their free time.

To finish a dance, it takes three rehearsals, and to try to improve it takes two more rehearsals. But because we rehearse once a week, it’s like one or two months.

It seems like you cover a lot of SNSD songs. Are they your favorite group? What are your favorite artists to cover?

Since we are eight members, we have different favorite groups, but SNSD is definitely one of our favorites! Their dances are so synchronized and there are nine of them, so we understand how hard it is. We also like to cover T-ara; in our next event we are going to cover them again. There are other groups that we would love to cover, like 4minute, A Pink, Kara, 2NE1, and many more. In general, we love all the girl groups.

It’s understandable that you would cover female groups for your performances, but in real life, who are your favorite K-Pop artists? What do the other girls listen to?

Well, I consider myself a SONE, definitely. In the group, there are fans of DBSK, SHINee, and Super Junior. We have one member who is crazy for 2NE1 and Big Bang. And our leader is really into T-ara. We really love all the K-Pop groups.

I noticed that your outfits are always really cute! Who chooses them? Which was your favorite? 

We choose them together! We try to find a pretty outfit without spending a lot of money, but that’s really hard. Since every K-Pop group has lots of outfits for every song, we choose the prettiest and most comfortable to dance. I think our favorite so far is “Oh!” because of the T-shirts. It was the most comfortable to dance in since we got to wear sneakers. In the other outfits, we have to wear high heels, which are hard to dance in!

What words of advice would you give to anyone who wants to form a dance cover group?

Do it for the love of dancing and for your favorite groups. And try to be united, always. It’s more comfortable for all the members to be in a group when there is respect and friendship. Don’t let any problem you have with a performance or something like that ruin your friendship… stay together.

We’re sure you’ll see a lot of Dolls in the future! Here’s their info so you can follow what they’re up to! And check out some of their videos here! 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dollsperu 
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/grupodollsperu