SEVENTEEN member HOSHI’s performance of solo mixtape “Spider,” is a monumental turning point for K-pop performances. In the music video, the Performance Team leader pushes the limits of K-pop performance while broadening the playing field. HOSHI’s performance in “Spider” opens with him hanging from a steel frame, introducing the concept of up and down to a stage typically defined in terms of front, back and side-to-side. The bars, arranged front to back in the first verse and left to right in the second, act as ticks on the perpendicular axes that divide the stage. Those who watch the video are treated to K-pop performed in redefined dimensions. In the choreography video for “Spider,” the camera is looking up at HOSHI as he hangs in the air. As the song progresses through the second verse, he dances through the frames one by one, moving his way from left to right. Viewers have to constantly keep their eyes darting around to keep up with HOSHI as he passes through every coordinate along the raised length and width of the stage. By the end of the second verse, he’s made it all the way to the right of the stage and comes forward to dance, only to be suddenly pulled back with the lyric “So emergency,” landing him somewhere between the front of the stage and the steel frames. Where the typical K-pop performance focuses on center stage and only deviates to the sides, “Spider” lures the camera off to the right, somewhere between the very rear of the stage and its center, and to other places it has never before captured.

After the minimal beats of the intro and the beginning of the first verse (“I can feel it”), the song shifts in tone from when HOSHI sings “Even a single drop of water” to “So emergency.” His voice slowly rings out in this section, which then transitions to the eerie chorus as the whole soundscape is gradually enveloped in a haze. An ominous tension slowly builds, just as the spider approaches the prey caught in its web, echoing a sense that the performance grows to fill the space on the stage while simultaneously drawing attention to minute details. While the song is slower than your typical dance number, it shifts through short, varied sections, making it difficult to pull off big, fast, dynamic movements. In place of in-your-face energy, the song strives to maintain tension right to the very end. HOSHI slowly moves between the steel-frame along the coordinates of the stage, visually completing the atmosphere of the video through a different style of performance at each. As “Spider” opens, he’s hanging onto the third steel frame from the front. He comes up to the very front when the song starts in earnest, later falling back to the second bar as the song’s rhythm changes (“Even a single drop of water”); he heads back yet another to dance during the chorus. Now, the movements HOSHI performs at the first frame, and the way two masked dancers obscure him with their bodies at the second, are reminiscent of contemporary dance. He slowly moves between just two of the frames, but we’re left in suspense wondering just how he’ll do it.

During the second verse, HOSHI progresses from the far-left frame to the rightmost one, staring forward as he moves past the first while dancing with the backup dancers. Passing the second bar, he and another dancer lie down, almost as if sinking into the ground. After the third, HOSHI makes to go further right until the dancers grab hold of him; escaping, he suddenly appears to trip as he falls to one knee. During this short time, the action takes place horizontally as well as vertically, slowing down only to speed up again. Like a spider, HOSHI moves slowly but without restraint; his unpredictable movements and rhythms carry him around a wide stage of his own creation. As the chorus plays, he forms a circle with his arms; he walks around, spider-like, step by step, even stepping in place between beats to change up the flow of the song. It’s fair to say that one rule of the dance genre is for solo artists to dance in the center during the chorus as backup dancers perform the same moves from behind. The position is so universally loved as to be practically unavoidable. But HOSHI, even in moments of the song where the genre would be expected to dictate his actions, uses dance moves that specifically embellish the song’s concept. The artist lays out the stage to resemble a giant spider web, crawling around it in his own interpretation of a spider’s movements.

According to HOSHI, the song was rerecorded after shooting the music video. There was no problem with the original recording; rather, he re-recorded the song to be able to do so “while watching the choreography video.” HOSHI sings in falsetto during the intro to “Spider” and in a deeper tone for lyrics like “Gulping anxiously.” He varies his voice depending on the part of the song: a normal voice for “Can’t breathe / When you look at me” in the chorus, falsetto for “I shiver all over / When you touch me,” and after singing “You tie me up like a spider” he strains himself to sing a little hoarsely. The beat and arrangement, too, continuously evolve as the melody changes around his different singing styles. The reasoning behind these complex changes is communicated more clearly through dance; after HOSHI understood the sense of the song better through his movements, he was able to re-record the vocals in a way more closely aligned with the rhythm and his vision for the song.

So this is HOSHI’s vision for a K-pop-style performance. While the lyrics of “Spider” describe someone irresistible, the performance exhibits a duality: HOSHI certainly approaches that irresistibility, but at the same time he moves in a way that suggests he is threatened, even stuck, as though caught in a web of the other dancers’ making. The performance, unlike the lyrics of the song, finds the artist divided into two roles, and visually tells a unique story between the two in a way not depicted in the lyrics alone. Rather than stop at manifesting visuals around the theme of the song, HOSHI’s performance for “Spider” is more akin to a comprehensive expression which counts the song among its many discrete components. In this way, the video isn’t just a K-pop performance, but a short musical theater dance number made in the image of K-pop. Only by watching its accompanying performance can “Spider” be fully appreciated.

Toward the end of the “Spider” video, HOSHI dances among the steel frames stretched across the width of the stage as he looks into the camera, and it ends with him turning to look down through the row of bars and dropping to his knees. Instead of moving the camera and rotating it 90 degrees, STUDIO CHOOM changes the scene through editing. One trend in K-pop performances since the onset of the pandemic is to produce performances within a mindset that there will be no live audience present. The inability to have an audience for performances presented the K-pop industry with a serious crisis, but it also encouraged experimentation with pre-recorded performances that make more liberal use of editing. As a result, it’s become more viable to try out new ideas in K-pop performances with a mind toward video rather than a live audience. In other words, there’s as much value in preserving a flawless recording of a K-pop performance as there is in performing it for viewers live. Some artists have come up with ideas that go beyond the preconceived scope of K-pop in the process, and HOSHI is among those demonstrating new concepts and possibilities with their performances. With “Spider,” he’s shown that K-pop can be a genre of performance in addition to one of music, and has proven just what artists are capable of. And that broadens what we can imagine when we think of K-pop-style performances. One thing has remained constant, even during the pandemic era: the stage is infinite. And there, some artists create a whole universe of their own.