“While I was trying to learn a new Britneyian choreography I found myself YouTube videos include videos of a certain Boa. Specifically, a video in which Boa was accused of having copied some moves from Britney. I immediately wondered how he dared to do something like that “: that’s what he talks about Marco Ferrara, aka Seoul Mafia, youtuber who talks about his life in South Korea to almost half a million followers.
In addition to doing this and being also very active on Instagram, Marco is a familiar face in the Korean entertainment industry and started his career as a member of the now disbanded K-Pop band ESQlicious. Which is a real rarity for a Westerner: “As a teenager I was a huge fan of Britney Spears, la mia musa danzerina that I imitated in front of the mirror every afternoon, imagining myself performing in front of thousands of people ”, he confessed.
Thanks to Britney, Marco discovered Boa and the K-Pop genre: “She is one of the most famous Korean singers in the world even today, and that day she made me fall in love with K-Pop and changed my life”.
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At twenty-one, Marco decides to make his dream come true and moves to Seoul, where he begins a tiring apprenticeship that leads him to be a trainee: “In Korea you become a trainee when a record company decides to bet on you to see if, with a lot of training, they can make you a member of a Korean band. In my case I found myself living overnight with 4 strangers, without cell phones or computers and with many language problems “. The trainee must concentrate solely on training: “We couldn’t go out with friends and we didn’t have comfortable hours. The dance lessons from midnight to 6 am sometimes they weighed a little, but even if it was definitely not the best time of my life, it certainly formed me a lot. It was a bit like being in the military ”.
The phenomenon K-Pop has dominated the Asian territories for about twenty years and for some years it has also been cleared through customs in Europe, where the Korean Wave has also arrived, Marco reminded us: “It was inevitable that this would happen. It is a style that you may like or not, but the maniacal care with which a piece of music is created here is on another level. The K-Pop videos have productions that often are the envy of even Americans and the work they put behind every dance step shows it all. Maybe those 6 hours of dance rehearsal a day are good for something “. More: Marco is very happy that the new generations can listen to K-Pop freely, because “when I was little I was ashamed to say that I listened to Korean artists. I felt alone. Instead, it is now much easier to find someone to share this passion with ”.
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From music to video games
“Exactly twenty years ago I was in Seoul to follow the first World Cyber Games, on that occasion I remember that I was very impressed by the clubs that provided rooms where groups of children could dance the choreographies of dance / music video games – he Marco told – They still exist and are called Game Bbang, with with two bs. They are private rooms where you can go with friends and play with any console on the market and a ton of games available, included Just Dance“. After all, in Korea there are still many arcades, a meeting place for young people extinct in the West: “In the university areas they sprout like mushrooms”.
In Just Dance 2022 there are 6 K-Pop and J-Pop from some of the hottest bands of the moment such as Blackpink, Aespa and SuperM, also with Just Dance Unlimited, Ubisoft’s subscription streaming service, you can access a library that has more than 500 songs including some of the biggest K-Pop hits.
According to Marco, in the game, the K-Pop choreographies are fabulous: “The right level of difficulty can entertain both beginners and more experienced dancers. As regards the differences with western choreographies, let’s say that among Asian pop singers there are many artists who dance like professional dancers and almost everyone can take home extremely elaborate choreographies. In the West we focus more on vocality and there are very few artists who can dance choreography like a professional dancer ”.
In addition to working on YouTube, Seoul Mafia is Italy’s digital ambassador to Korea with its videos: “I like to entertain the people who choose to follow me by showing them the differences between Italian and Korean culture in the most disparate ways. Between video reactions and food tastings, I would like to show the strengths and weaknesses of both countries trying to make it clear that the perfect one does not exist and that often there is no right or wrong, just different ways to live “.
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