Yours Truly is a five-piece team from the Lower Mainland with a deep love for dance. The core group consists of Kim, Theo, Stephanie, Kiki, and Frances. Together they take part in dance competitions and events, as well as covering dance choreographies from popular K-Pop songs and uploading them to YouTube. They have amassed over 7,000 followers on YouTube, with views rising over 1.5 million. The Peak reached out to the girls from SFU’s Hip-Hop Club.
The Peak: How did Yours Truly meet?
Theo: Steph and I met each other in [a] K-Pop dance class back in 2009, while the rest of us met each other through the SFU Hip-Hop Club. Frances attended our friend’s dance studio and was recruited for one of our covers. We ended up bringing her in for more covers and she became a permanent member!
Kim: We had started out as two friends who wanted to learn K-Pop dances for fun. We figured it would be fun to film what we learned and share our love for K-Pop with the rest of the Internet!
The Peak: Why K-Pop?
Theo: When it comes to K-Pop, the performances are always very inspiring to us because the idols are all multitalented. They can sing, dance, and even produce their own music and choreograph their own dances. Majority of these idols have been training since they were young and their hard work definitely pays off. We love not only K-Pop but we also find Korean culture very interesting. We love the fashion, food, and history of Korea.
The Peak: What are the competitions like for you?
Frances: For our competition in LA at KCON, it didn’t really feel like a competition because we were practicing on our usual schedule. I didn’t feel too pressured, because I still wanted to dance and enjoyed learning and practicing our sets. It wasn’t until it got closer to the date when I felt I had to really work on details like facial expressions and stamina, and then it felt more like a competition.
The Peak: What are some of your favourite dancers/groups and artists?
Kiki: I come from a dance background and started getting into K-Pop because of the fun dances which accompanied the songs. I fell in love with a boy group called SHINee back in 2010 because their choreographer at the time was my favourite dancer, Rino Nakasone. The fact that she got to work with SHINee made them my favourite K-Pop group as they made her choreography look so good!
As for Yours Truly as a team, we tend to gravitate towards complicated dances from K-Pop groups because we can showcase our ability this way. Some of our members are hardcore BTS A.R.M.Y. [fanclub members] and we make sure that we do a BTS cover every time a new single comes out.
The Peak: What is the group’s goal?
Stephanie: It started out just for fun, but now that we have grown so much, it’s motivated us to aim higher. This year we joined a few competitions, including the KBS K-Pop World Festival and managed to get second in the US Finals. We’re proud of what we’ve done, but next year we’re aiming for first so we can compete in the World Finals in Korea. Beyond that, we’re simply enjoying continuously growing our channel and producing bigger and better videos.
If you are interested in finding out more about Yours Truly, check out their YouTube, Facebook, and Patreon pages.
For anyone interested in checking out the SFU Hip-Hop Club, meetings are held every Tuesday, starting September 20 from 7 to 9 p.m in front of Bubble World in MBC. Single drop-in classes are $2, and entry for the whole semester is $10.
