Comparing The Dance Practice Rooms Of 4 Big K-Pop Entertainment Agencies

What is one of the most popular contents among Kpop fans? It's the choreography practice videos, of course!

Dance practice rooms are where idols spend a majority of their time.

Shall we take a look at the places where various idol group's blood, sweat, and tears are spared categorized by each agency?

HYBE (Big Hit)

First, let's take a look at the practice rooms of BTS's agency HYBE (Big Hit). With BTS's great success, HYBE (Big Hit) practice rooms have undergone a huge transformation.

The practice rooms that say Big Hit on the walls may look familiar to you if you have been a fan of BTS for a while!

BTS spent a lot of time in this practice room from their trainee days to the beginning of their debut.

This clip above is from BTS' choreography video of "War Of Hormone" from 2015.

Doesn't the space look a little too small for 7 adult men that are practicing their insane choreography?

Then, as Big Hit's office building moved, the BTS practice room changed dramatically!

The floor, walls, and ceiling are all white giving it a clean and stylish makeover for their videos.

From this point on, the room fits enough people for not only the 7 members to dance in, but also for their huge number of backup dancers.

You can really see how big the space is in this "FIRE" dance video!

Then this practice room also goes through another transformation. They change the floor as you can see, to add more security.

The white floors that were installed previously looked pretty but fans were concerned for their knees as it was made with hard marble.

Anyways, "FAKE LOVE" choreography always gives me chills every time I watch it!

You can also check out their most recent practice room through "DYNAMITE" choreography video.

It's spacious and neat which looks like the perfect place to practice!

Following in BTS's footsteps, the group TXT also shot several choreography videos here, including "Crown".

The girl group GFriend of Source Music, which Big Hit acquired, also filmed "MAGO" in this practice room. This room is used by so many different artists.

According to an official announcement, HYBE relocated its office once more on March 22nd. Many fans were wondering what the practice room of their new building would look like.

Then on March 31st, the choreography video of TXT's "Poppin' Star" was released, revealing the new and improved practice room!

It looks like they can practice not only their choreography for the music show broadcasts, but also for their concerts that require bigger movements.

We're all looking forward to what kind of choreography BTS and many other idols will show in their new practice rooms! 😃

SM

TVXQ, Super Junior, Girl's Generation, SHINee, EXO, Red Velvet, NCT, and Aespa! What kind of practice room does SM entertainment with so many popular artists have?

This is the choreography video of "History" from EXO's debut album. The footage above shows the former SM practice room where young EXO members showed their best moves 10 years ago.

If you have been a fan of SM artists for a while, you will be quite familiar with this room!

It's a place that appeared a lot in the practice videos of SM's 2nd generation Kpop idol groups TVXQ, Super Junior, Girl's Generation, and SHINee! Among SM idol fans, there was a popular equation of SM = Cloudy Wall that was going around.

Key from SHINee even showed this infamous wall in a variety show and joked, "You all know this wall, right?" 🤣

The legendary choreography video of SHINee's "Sherlock" was also filmed here.

You can feel how much time went by in these videos, right? This video was from 10 years ago!

Besides, at this time, they uploaded their raw footage of practice videos. These days, a lot of idols film a separate high-quality choreography video to upload.

But back then, they filmed their choreography for themselves to check, and uploaded it! Just like this TVXQ's "Catch Me" video.

Of course, these days the videos are better quality, but the past choreography videos feel more authentic. So there are a lot of fans who miss these types of videos!

The room where Girl's Generation "Mr. Mr." was also filmed at is a famous space that is often seen in old choreography videos of SM.

This practice room is a little bigger than the room with the cloud background, so choreographies like SHINee's "Everybody" may benefit from the extra space.

However, this place rarely appears in any videos ever since 2016 when SM Entertainment built a new office building. Red Velvet's "Rookie" seems to be the last choreography video that was filmed here.

So what do SM's practice rooms look like now? Since there are so many artists in SM, the office building and practice rooms are divided into several rooms. Out of those, I will show you the three that are most frequently shown in the media.

The is the first room! The room where Taemin's "Move" was filmed is one of SM's practice rooms that have appeared in videos from 2017.

This place which appeared in NCT DREAM's "Go" is very spacious. Unlike most of the other practice rooms that are underground and do not have windows, this stands out as it has a large window.

This room where NCT 127's "Kick It" was filmed, is also one of the newer spaces. It is definitely more spacious and neater than the room before, right?

NCT U's "Make A Wish" was also filmed here. This room seems to be the most used by NCT than other groups.

If you are a fan of SM artists, you will probably know all about this practice room! It is a place that has appeared not only in choreography videos but also in various media.

EXO's "Obsession" was also filmed here!

As you can see from Taemin's "Criminal" choreography video, this practice room is very large for its artists to freely move around.

Since there are many types of equipment installed in the back, they also prepare for larger concert performances here.

According to public records, SM Entertainment plans to relocate its office to Seongsu-dong, Seoul, where Seoul Forest is located. I'm already excited to see what their new practice rooms will look like!

3. YG

Now, shall we look at YG's practice rooms?

Shown in order are BIGBANG's "BANG BANG BANG" , BIGBANG's "TONIGHT" , 2NE1 "I Am The Best" choreography.

All three songs are about 10 years old. The unique dark lighting is the main characteristic of YG.

After, iKON "Love Scenario" was filmed here.

WINNER's "Really Really" choreography was also filmed here. Doesn't this practice room proudly boast a long history?

Of course, BLACKPINK also followed their dreams in this practice room. Their debut song, "WHISTLE" choreography was filmed here.

In the previous practice room, the background was just a simple wall. But in the practice video, you can see blinds with the BLACKPINK logo that have been installed.

Afterward, "AS IF IT'S YOUR LAST" and "Kill This Love" choreography videos were filmed here. YG maintained its unique dark lighting.

YG has been using their practice room for over 10 years. Then last year, the news that YG built a new office building with a size of 6,000 pyeong (19834.71 square meters) broke through. And fans were very excited to see what the newly renovated practice room will look like.

In the choreography video of TREASURE's "I LOVE YOU" , filmed last September, the practice room of the new office building was revealed for the first time!

There are a total of 7 practice rooms in YG's new office building. It is said that it was prepared so that each artist can have a separate room for them to practice.

The previous practice room looked a little narrow, but doesn't their new rooms look way more spacious? The LED screen in the back is also really impressive.

When this was filmed, the office building was still under construction so they had to use BIGBANG's practice room instead.

The choreography video of iKON's "Why Why Why" for their recent comeback was filmed in the new practice room for iKON. Clearly, it looks much bigger than the previous one and the facilities look amazing too!

What does BLACKPINK's practice room look like? You can see it in their "Lovesick Girls" choreography video!

Doesn't the background look like a European castle? It fits their image very well.

The room also looks spacious enough for them to practice their choreography!

Looking at the practice rooms in the new office building, I can feel that YG works hard to support its artists!

I am looking forward to seeing more artists that will showcase their talent in high-quality videos!

4. JYP

Lastly, shall we look at JYP's practice rooms?

The very early stages of JYP practice rooms looked like this. This video is from 2PM's "I Hate You" choreography video from 2009! At this time, uploading choreography videos weren't really a thing yet so it feels more authentic!

After that, JYP's practice room gets remodeled and transformed! Got7 "Stop stop it" and "Just Right" were all filmed in their new space.

TWICE also used this practice room since their debut. The biggest downside of this room is that it's pretty narrow. TWICE's "SIGNAL" and "LIKEY" choreography don't even involve too much movement, but you can feel how small the space is.

If you look at 2PM's "GO CRAZY" choreography video it's clear that it's too narrow for dance practices.

They even bumped into the wall a couple of times during the choreography.

Perhaps that's why when their choreography requires a lot of movement, they use a different room. In Got7 "If You Do" , they seemed like they used a different practice room.

Also, as a side note, JYP has a practice room with white lights on a black wall. It mainly appeared in Stray Kids, and SIXTEEN, a program before TWICE's debut.

Perhaps, this is the space that mainly trainees use.

This is a video from TWICE's "I Can't Stop Me" choreography practice. It is a lot wider, right?

It completely eliminated the previous downsides of the practice room. The lights with JYP on the ceiling and the red wall are quite impressive.

Since the space got bigger, artists can have more space to move around in choreographies like ITZY's "Not Shy" .

There is a secret behind this room. If you watch ITZY's "2020 End Of Year" video, you can see that the two spaces are combined. The red wall we saw above was what actually divides the two spaces.

So, when practicing choreography for a large stage, they can raise the wall up to make the space wider! Isn't that really cool?

There is also a light blue room such as the one shown in STRAY KIDS "神메뉴" video.

There are so many practice rooms in JYP, a small gray studio that filmed Itzy's "DALLA DALLA" and a large studio that filmed STRAY KIDS "神메뉴" .

Having a clear concept in each practice room seems to be the most important feature that sets itself apart from other agencies!

Today we looked at the history of HYBE (Big Hit), SM, YG, and JYP's choreography practice rooms. What was your favorite?

Usually, I enjoy watching practice videos of idols. Watching these videos make me realize once again how much work they put in behind the scenes!

What is your favorite dance practice video? Let us know down in the comments below!

I'll be back with more fun content next time, thank you for reading!