For reasons no one is thrilled by, this was a year that will go down in history. But in spite of everything, people carried on with their lives, and did their best to make it through. The stories on each of the performances by the six teams across three days from December 28 to 30 is also a documentation of how people live their lives.

December 6, 2020. Mnet 2020 MAMA : “Into the I-LAND (Piano Ver.),” “Intro: Walk the Line,” “Given-Taken” 

At the 2020 MAMA show, new boy band ENHYPEN connects three songs: “Into the I-LAND (Piano Ver.),” the theme song of the Mnet reality audition TV program that gave birth to the group; “Intro: Walk the Line,” the first track off ENHYPEN’s debut album, BORDER: DAY ONE; and the album’s lead single, “Given-Taken.” ENHYPEN also shows the journey they took to make it to the 2020 MAMA stage. The performances of “Into the I-LAND” and “Walk the Line” are a retrospection of the path they took so far. Gliding through the unknown with steps and turns that remind us of the figure skater he formerly was, SUNGHOON reenacts a panorama of the members’ history, from discovering their dream, to their time on I-LAND, and finally setting foot on this stage. SUNGHOON lifts up an egg, which symbolizes I-LAND out of a whirling vortex of smoke, and the egg then draws in all the surrounding energy, expanding until it finally explodes which metaphorically illustrates ENHYPEN’s birth. Their debut album’s opening song, “Intro: Walk the Line,” begins amidst thunder, lightning and intense shaking which portrays their debut “under the first day’s sun [where] agony turns to bliss” over a mystical background of colorful neon signs slowly rising up.

ENHYPEN performs their debut lead single “Given-Taken” on a stage floor adorned with classical patterns, majestic medieval European architecture surrounded by a forest and floating rocks in a reddened sky. The stage atmosphere that evokes a sense of fantasy gives the impression that ENHYPEN is in an entirely novel spacetime, but the narrative of the song and its performance are in fact autobiographical. In the dance break, the members grab hold of NI-KI, but he breaks free, and then JAY stands in the front, seemingly alone, as the other members’ arms move behind him erratically. Finally, and with a sound of resolution, to show their difficult journey to become a team and debut, they take their positions around leader JUNGWON and perform the group’s signature move, connect. This dance, an intensively condensed overview of the time they spent chasing their dreams, is also the very definition of ENHYPEN themselves. Not only did they have to constantly push themselves during I-LAND, but they also struggled through complicated emotions in order to survive among the group of trainees that had formed into what was essentially a micro community. Nevertheless, ENHYPEN bring out their past, the story of a never-before-seen and unrecognized “me,” to prove their worth and to acknowledge themselves for who they are. And with that, the first chapter of the team that survived the audition show and just started to write their own narratives is over.