Seoul, Korea – CJ E&M began airing the second season of its hit dance survival show Dancing9 June 13 on music channel Mnet. Following a successful first season in 2013, Dancing9 returns to showcase the excitement of expertly performed dance battles more beautifully and vividly than ever before. The second season also sees a 30% increase in the number of foreign applicants from the previous year, coming from 63 countries and six continents.
Broadcast on CJ E&M’s specialised music channel Mnet, Dancing9 was an immediate hit in its inaugural season as the first dance survival show in Korea. With thrilling competitions highlighting diverse genres from K-Pop to street to jazz to ballet dance, Dancing9 served to introduce the joy of dance to mainstream Korean culture. Based on the show’s popularity across Asia, the first season of Dancing9 has been sold to Dance Channel and will air in October when the channel launches in Japan.
Dancing9
For the second season, to even better highlight the excitement of the dance performances, Dancing9 will adopt Dartfish technology, commonly used in sports broadcasting to capture swift movements in better detail. The show will also continue to use TimeSlice technology to capture the movements of dancers from diverse angles. In a format enhancement, the second season also introduces a new category for group applicants based on the enthusiastic response to group collaboration performances during the first season. The competitions between the two teams, Red Wings and Blue Eye, will be more intense and dynamic this season by rearranging the lineup of “masters” who serve as judges and trainers for the nine contestants on each team.
Ha Hui-dong, MVP of the winning team from season one who joins as a master of Red Wings this year, remarked, “I experienced dramatic changes as a professional dancer after appearing on the first season of Dancing9. Many other finalists have also gone on to success becoming a professor, advertising model, sports dance athlete, and so forth. I am very excited to meet the contestants of Dancing9 this year.”
In addition, Ahn Joon-young, a lead producer of the show, explained, “We saw the potential of dance survival shows in Korea last year with the incredible popularity of the first season of Dancing9. I believe this show has redefined Korean dance, and with enhanced format and technology improvements, the second season will continue to strengthen the dance boom in the country.”
CJ E&M’s music channel Mnet has led the Korean television industry by introducing diverse hit shows including Superstar K, The Voice of Korea (Korean edition of The Voice), and Trot X. These shows each aired in primetime on Fridays at 11pm (KST) – a slot that Dancing9 now takes over.
