Soompi K-Pop Dance Madness: Sweet Sixteen

Welcome back to Soompi’s K-Pop Dance Madness! It’s time for Sweet Sixteen (and coincidentally, it’s also time for Soompi’s own Sweet Sixteen — happy birthday, Soompi)!

Madness is indeed the name of the game as many established dancers were knocked out in the first round. If there was any doubt that fan voting would overtake objectivity, you could rest assured that, well, K-Pop fans are a passionate bunch when it comes to supporting their biases. Here’s a quick recap of some of the results:

Surprise of the week: Taeyang‘s defeat to Lee Joon. It’s not that Lee Joon isn’t a good dancer; we just figured that Taeyang, who is pretty much the go-to guy that everyone thinks about when they think about awesome dancers, would be a much stronger contender. 

Surprise of the week, runner-up: Kahi‘s defeat to GOT7’s Mark. We all know that Kahi is one of the best dancers in the business. What we didn’t quite grasp was the fan power of one of K-Pop’s dark horses.

Never stood a chance: The biggest win went to Super Junior’s Eunhyuk, who roundly defeated Chae Yeon by taking about 90% of the vote. Sorry, Chae Yeon!

Neck and neck: Infinite fans tried valiantly to support Dongwoo and Hoya, but were beaten by the slimmest of margins by BoA (50.5%) and SISTAR’s Bora (52%). Good try from the Infinite H boys, anyway!

Put up a surprisingly good fight: When it came to EXO’s Kai versus miss A’s Jia, it wasn’t difficult to figure out who would steal the vote. Kai is a formidable dancer, and we knew the EXO fans would come out full force. But we were surprised to see that Jia really held her own. With her awesome dance moves, she took an admirable 42% of the vote. Well done, Jia!

Lost the contest, but gained fans: Zinni had an uphill battle ahead of her, going against Miss “Gangnam Style” herself, HyunA. Even though she didn’t move onto the next round, a few people noted that they hadn’t known about her before, but definitely be looking out GLAM’s resident b-girl in the future.

Farewell to all our defeated contenders! Now, let’s move on with the Green Division (Taemin, Mark, and more)!

SHINee’s Taemin (#1) vs. GOT7’s Mark (#7)

EXO’s Kai (#3) vs. 4minute’s HyunA (#4)

Next, let’s go to the Pink Division (Hyoyeon, Eunhyuk, and more)!

Girls’ Generation’s Hyoyeon (#1) vs. Super Junior’s Eunhyuk (#2)

2NE1’s Minzy (#3) vs. BEAST’s Gikwang (#4)

Halfway done! Let’s move onto the Orange Division (BoA, Lee Joon, and more)!

BoA (#2) vs. MBLAQ’s Lee Joon (#8)

TVXQ’s Yunho (#3) vs. Jay Park (#4)

Almost there! Now it’s time for the Blue Division (Rain, Lay, and more)!

Rain (#1) vs. EXO’s Lay (#2)

2PM’s Junho (#5) vs. SISTAR’s Bora (#6)

Who will move onto the Elite Eight? Make your voices heard and be sure to get your votes in by March 31!