South Korean Pop Music, or K-Pop for short, has come a long way towards becoming something the whole world enjoys. It achieved dominance in its home country through its masterful blend of music, vocals, dance, fashion and marketing. Thanks to a rise of Korean artists gaining English fluency, K-Pop began to expand, first in Asia via regional music channels. With the rise of streaming and then social media, K-Pop blew up globally, with names from Wonder Girls to PSY to BTS entrenching the genre with an international audience. Now, South Korean entertainment labels are taking their search for new K-Pop stars on a worldwide scale.

CNN Philippines reports that South Korean mega-label SM Entertainment made known, over the weekend, their planned audition for aspiring K-Pop talent that will encompass the whole world. A post on their official Twitter page dated January 30 announced the “2022 SM Global Audition KWANGYA,” which will start online registration this Monday, the 31st. This application period will last for most of next month, ending on February 20. Would-be K-Pop stars, wherever they may be, need to be born between the years 2003 and 2011 to be eligible for the audition.

SME’s KWANGYA audition will be divided into two phases. The initial round calls for the applicants to submit photos of themselves along with a video of them performing, whether in song, dance, rap or acting. Those aspirants chosen will go to the second round of audition. It will primarily be done offline with the prospective talents travelling to SME audition sites, although provisions will be made to allow those who cannot come to be evaluated via Zoom video teleconferencing. International K-Pop dreamers are in good hands with SM Entertainment, which counts among its talents familiar names like Super Junior, Girls Generation, Shinee and EXO among many other hit K-Pop groups.

Signing up for SME KWANGYA Global Audition 2022 will be an exciting yet highly challenging venture. It is already well known to international audiences that South Korean talents undergo intense development and regimented lifestyles. International applicants will need to keep that in mind. Further details on the SM Entertainment global audition may be found here.

Interestingly, SME is at this point catching up with other South Korean entertainment companies that have taken their search for new talent worldwide. Back in 2021 YG Entertainment (Blackpink) opened similar auditions to form a new boy group. Big Hit Entertainment (BTS) has done the same, even partnering with Universal Music Group to do so.

Image: SM Entertainment Twitter page

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