As SEOHEE talks about all the experiences she’s had, she always adds that it’s been fun all along. Maybe that’s why, behind the nervous excitement on her fresh face and in her youthful voice, there’s a steadiness to her you can’t quite put your finger on.
Thoughts on the day’s photoshoot
SEOHEE: I was a little nervous being first up for the shoot, but the photographer kept complimenting me, and that made things go smoothly. I’ve had some poses and facial expressions from all the shoots I’ve been doing lately that I liked. It’s been happening with increasing frequency lately. It’s like I’m slowly figuring out the angles that work best for me. (laughs) Honestly, I think I got used to having my photo taken early on, since my mom always loved taking pictures of me as a kid. And it became even more second nature once I started life as a trainee.
SEOHEE’s personal style
SEOHEE: I like styles that are just natural and aren’t too over-the-top, but still have a little accent somewhere, like clothes that don’t have something wild printed on them but have something like a cute dot or floral pattern. I like trying out different things, too, so I have fun during wardrobe fittings. It’s fun to wear pieces I wouldn’t normally consider, or clothes from brands I’m already familiar with. I always want to give new things a try when there’s a new fashion trend or something. I naturally end up following trends like that. And it’s really exciting when it turns out to suit me.
Recent obsessions
SEOHEE: I love perfume, so I’ll mix a few together. I mostly go for floral scents. Lately I’ll take something a little sweet and mix it with something more neutral. I like it when I’m practicing and I get a whiff of a nice fragrance, and it’s fun when the girls say “you smell really good!” and I go “it’s this!” And I like taking pictures just as much as I like being in them. Vintage digital cameras have been in the past few years, so I figured I couldn’t not get one, and I bought a pink one I liked on a used site. I’m usually the one in the group taking the pretty or really aesthetic photos. (laughs)
Shooting photos and video for the debut album, “TUNE & PLAY”
SEOHEE: They usually walk us through the vision for a shoot beforehand, and I try to keep that in mind as reference and look up things with a similar mood on my own, too. I’ll practice poses ahead of time and think about whether they fit the mood they’re going for. The weather in Iceland was rougher than expected when we shot the “SUN KISS” music video, but the scenery was so beautiful that it seriously looked just like a painting. It wasn’t exactly an easy place to get to, so we thought “Who knows when we’ll be back here again” and gave it everything we had. And we shot some of the photos for the album cover in Thailand, and I loved the distinct vibe there. It was my first shoot for that and my first shoot abroad, so it wasn’t really too exhausting, more exciting.
First time hearing “SUN KISS”
SEOHEE: I thought it had a super fresh sound, kind of different from anything else. The melody’s front and center in the intro and pre-chorus, so I channeled R&B to bring out all the detail with my vocals. And I practiced the chorus to make sure it had plenty of impact. The producers paid close attention to every detail, too, so I feel like my understanding of the song deepened every time I did another take. I had a certain image in my head for the choreo when I first heard the song, but it turned out to be even cooler than I imagined, and they worked in highlights that let us show off our skills. It was like, “So this is what all that practice was for.” We all cried, for real. We were just that happy. (laughs)
Performance aspirations for TUIDE
SEOHEE: I sing the intro on a lot of our songs, and I think that’s an important role since it’s the first impression for the song. If I kick things off properly, the others can carry it forward from there. On the lead single “SUN KISS,” I come in a little upbeat and confident, then ease right into the flow of the song. There’s a house freestyle section later on, plus a lot of different formations and camera angles, so I paid extra close attention to that. It’s basically like, “Look at us! Pretty special, right? We’re good, right?” (laughs) For “Flip-Flop Girl,” I’m all, “I am Flip-Flop Girl.” (laughs) The way I see it, “Flip-Flop Girl” is about wearing flip-flops under the blazing sun, listening to music—sort of just laid-back, easygoing. But super cool. (laughs) “GRLS” is our personal introduction, so I tried to maintain a sense of confidence throughout and convey that kind of self-assurance.
Early dancing days
SEOHEE: My mom wanted me to try all kinds of different things out, so growing up, she made sure I got to experience as much as possible. I even considered getting serious about piano at one point, and I studied really hard (laughs) but dancing ended up being the constant in my life in the end. For as far back as I can remember, I was always dancing. I started with ballet as a small kid, and that naturally led into Korean traditional dance all through elementary school. I took it seriously enough to actually consider majoring in it. Dance is this sort of project where all your effort pays off in the end, you could say. Like, if you’re preparing for a competition, you practice hard, and on the day, you do your makeup and dress up nice. (laughs) It was mostly the judges watching, but there was something exciting about showing someone the result of all that hard work. I think I always found being onstage fun. I mean, when I was younger, there were things that scared me or wore me down, things I had to push through, but those experiences are exactly what got me through being a trainee. I thought about that a lot—“That’s the reason I can handle all this.”
The road to ABD
SEOHEE: I joined a K-pop dance club in middle school just for fun, so my mom already knew I was into it. She suggested I try and audition, and I was just like, “Alright.” So I went in and passed the audition (laughs) and that was that. I danced to CHUNG HA’s song “Why Don’t You Know,” which I learned to get into the dance club, and I sang “Across the universe” by Yerin Baek. My family loves to sing, so we went to karaoke together ever since I was little, and it wasn’t unusual to hear singing around the house. I didn’t realize it at the time, but all my friends were pretty good singers too, so I just assumed everyone was that good. (laughs) Then I sang at my audition, and the person evaluating me looked surprised and asked if I’d taken lessons, and said I’d be really good if I trained. That’s when it hit me—“Oh, I’m not too bad at this.” (laughs) Once I became a trainee and kept working at my voice, I enjoyed it even more, and the more into it I got, the more I wanted to push further.
From traditional dance to K-pop
SEOHEE: Becoming a trainee and breaking the habits I developed from Korean traditional dance was really, really hard. Like, a lot of that traditional dance involves keeping your upper body straight the whole time, so I kept standing too upright, or reaching out my fingers in a way that just didn’t work with hip hop at all. And since you take smaller steps with traditional dance, I overcorrected and started taking huge steps, which took a while to fix, too. (laughs) On the plus side, I got to learn all kinds of different dance styles as a trainee, each charming and fun in its own way. I loved discovering all the ways my body could move. Becoming a K-pop artist felt like this vague childhood dream to me, something that existed in a completely different world, but singing and dancing with the other trainees, working through problems, practicing to work up to a final product—that was fun and made me feel happy. I felt like I could do this for the rest of my life, and it made me want to push even harder.
Meeting the rest of TUIDE for the first time
SEOHEE: SAKI was the second-longest trainee after me. When I first met her, she had her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she was standing there in overalls, just kind of staring wide-eyed. (laughs) She couldn’t say anything in Korean other than “hello” and “thank you,” so we talked through a translation app while we ate. Sometimes I still catch a little glimpse of that SAKI, and it makes me realize how much she’s grown. I remember how sweet and considerate SEOYEON was right from the beginning, offering to share her food with me, and she’s still just as thoughtful. SEAH was tall and had this mature air about her, and then in this cute voice she just went, “Hi, I’m Park Seah, I’m 14.” I remember thinking, “Aww, why is this baby so tall?” And she’s still our giant baby to this day. (laughs) ELENA was wearing hoop earrings when I first met her, and she had that whole overseas-Korean vibe from living abroad for so long. I thought she was so cool. Then I randomly heard her singing in the hallway before we even got close, and I remember thinking, “Wow, she’s really good. She’s got a whole thing of her own going on.” YI HANI struck me as incredibly charming from the moment she said hi, and I remember thinking, “She’s tall too! She’s like a model.” I could tell how full of energy she was right from the very first time we practiced together. JIA was the last one I met, and at first she seemed sort of tense, unlike now. I felt like she was really strong and tough. But now she’s gotten so much softer (laughs) so she’s pretty different from my first impression of her. We got to know each other’s strengths and what makes us special from practicing together. When I found out the seven of us were going to be a group, I was like, “This is gonna be an amazing group.”
TUIDE at home
SEOHEE: Right now I share a room with JIA, and we’re both fairly minimalist when it comes to decoration—like, a poster here, a cute trash can we picked out there, that kind of thing. Before that, the two of us shared a room with SEAH, too. We’re all pretty chill, so if the AC was on, we’d just think, “Guess someone’s hot,” and if it was off, “Oh, guess someone was cold,” so when it ended up just being the two of us, I knew we’d get along fine. Everyone hangs out in each other’s rooms to talk, or we all squeeze onto the living room couch and watch TV. It’s seriously just like family. We’ve made steak and fried rice together from meal kits, and we even made tteokguk before. We even made dumpling filling ourselves and shaped them by hand. Everyone’s pretty aware that I’m the better chef (laughs) so I take charge and the others divide up the rest of the duties. I’ll be cooking and turn around, and one of them’s prepping the green onion while someone else is cleaning up and doing the dishes. I told them, “You guys are the perfect helpers.” YI HANI likes to bake, and SEOYEON’s a really capable cook too, so the two of them often go off and make things on their own.
The oldest member of the group
SEOHEE: I’m actually the shortest one in the group. The rest of them are all so tall … (laughs) I thought, “Can I really lead these big kids?” (laughs) I have a younger sister, so I’m the older sister at home, too, just like with the group. I’m pleased … (laughs) Honestly, I was a little worried since I’d never played the role of big sister while we were trainees. None of us really knew how to navigate it at first, so I tried to foster an environment where we could all just be open with each other. I made an effort to make sure everyone was open, too, so that if anyone felt hurt, we could be honest about it and work through it. We used to be a little more formal with each other, but from some point on, we learned to rely on each other and lounge around like actual family. (laughs) Once we got comfortable enough to be like that, that’s when I really felt like the group had become close.
A wider world through TUIDE
SEOHEE: When I was younger, I wanted stability in my life, and I didn’t want to try things I never tried before, but as I grew up and started seeing more of the world, I came to think I should just try my hand at everything I possibly can. These days, I want to try a little bit of everything. (laughs) And the seven of us are all really different people. We’re a pretty diverse group linguistically, too, so hearing about a side of American life I never knew from ELENA, or learning about Japanese culture from SAKI, has helped expand my view of the world. Living together and always being around six other people who are all so different has really widened my understanding of things—like my whole perspective’s opened up.
How it feels to be about to debut
SEOHEE: The trainee process was long, and it wasn’t all butterflies and rainbows, so I tried to stay focused on practicing itself. But now that it’s almost time to open up to the world, I’m curious and excited about how people will react. My close friends have been rooting for my dream this whole time, so when they heard I was debuting, they were kind of moved and proud of me. My family was like “at last!” and congratulated me. They always kept things positive during my time as a trainee and just quietly waited it out with me. I’m glad I finally have something to show for it and can repay their kindness.
The next big dream
SEOHEE: I want people to see how fresh our group is and hear them say, “Huh, there’s something different about these girls.” What I’m most looking forward to right now are things like fan sign events, where I can actually see fans up close and personal and talk with them. I’m curious what kind of people they’ll be, what they’ll like about me, what they’re drawn to about me. I guess I might just come across as this cute little girl on the outside. (laughs) But within the group, I want to be seen as having an older-sister side—someone who handles what she’s responsible for without missing a beat, someone well-rounded who can hold it all together. My goal right now is for the group to keep getting along as well as we do now. We’re going to experience so much together from here on out, so I hope we stay this close the whole way. And if I’m looking at an even bigger dream for TUIDE, I’d love for us to perform at a huge festival overseas someday and sing and dance for them. That’s the furthest and biggest goal of all. (laughs)