We're already in the last week of February in this still relatively new year. After all, if you go by the lunar calendar, this is still a young, fresh year. For some reason, I'm imagining it like a plant tentatively stretching upwards and outwards. So much can grow, so much can happen to test the plant.
In more literal terms:
On February 16th I performed on Joy Ruckus Club 3. The opportunity to be a part of it happened very suddenly and almost resulted in me saying no. Thankfully, my friend Wind Meets West and Dashi project member Dani talked sense into me. In particular, when I panic called Dani, I got too excited and nervous that I spilled an entire glass of iced coffee all over my keyboard.
But! Nothing terrible happened; I'm just using another keyboard and mercifully, my laptop is still functioning.
When I was approached for Joy Ruckus, I felt severely underprepared. My first question was actually, "Am I performer?" Did I even qualify on that baseline? But seeing as it was a live stream festival and seeing how previous performers had cozy sets, I figured why not.
It didn't fully hit me until I started seeing promotional material. Like, wait, that's my name, that's Saenabi among other amazing talents and under a festival headlined by HYOLYN, formerly of SISTAR, a notable second generation kpop group that literally was part of the soundtrack of late high school / early college. And then I saw a promotional poster with my face (!!!) on it and it was like okay...this is real.
And then I did it. And then I saw how my friends from ACN: Songwriting / Producing became a hype squad in the comments. And, well, I went to sleep that night very warm and content and cozy.
Here's my full performance:
The festival wasn't over, though. I performed on the first day of Joy Ruckus Club and over the next few days, got to see more performers who had different genres, very cool sets, and camera work. In a way, it was both entertainment but also a way for me to study and learn how other artists did it.
And then I understood what other artists meant when they said they wanted to improve their performance. As a classically trained violinist, that phrase didn't quite make sense to me. After all, when you perform in chamber music or as a soloist, our performance isn't as visually focused. But as I saw Serin Oh's gorgeous set with flowers or how Nush went from acoustic to rapping or how my friend chika. was so charismatic though she was just in a booth, I felt like I entered a new world to explore.
Next time, I want to try to do something minus an instrument. I think from Kpop Star 5 there was a contestant Woo Yerin who always performed with her piano and the judges said they wanted her to try to come out from behind the instrument and use the stage. I've never done that before; for Dashi, I was with the guitar or ukulele and for the SET + VOI launch party for "Tmrw" I also used instruments. What would it be like to just be able to run around on stage?
I was a bit surprised how after Joy Ruckus my ambition for performing grew. I thought that after it, I'd resume wanting to be more behind the scenes writing, top lining. But now I want to see how much I can experiment with and create a good show. I'm currently toying with the idea of streaming on Twitch or making mini sets, anything to get more used to performing and creating a compact performance and experience.
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My previous blog post was last year (whoops) and while "blog more" was on my to do list since, well, the last blog post, it took until today to get it done, ha! But now that I've done it, it feels familiar. It's somewhat like what I do in Cold Tea Collective as an editor and writer, but a bit more loose. And I guess, more hats that I'm wearing, since I have do come up with the idea, write it, then make sure it makes sense.
I'm excited to continue to use this blog as a space to wander through my journey and things that make me curious, things that won't leave my brain. I have at least two blog posts that I know I need to put out and then a handful of "I wonder what'll happen if I write about x?" ideas. I'm eyeballing settling a schedule for these posts, perhaps twice a week? Because I've realized that I really need structure, or (clearly) nothing will happen.
Thank you for tagging along and cheers to more sudden opportunities, new goals, and hopefully no equipment damage.
Ashley