hankyoreh

It's well past 11 p.m. Friday night, but Lee Woo-sung and his crew are just returning from a show and have two more interviews before they call it a day.

On their monthly schedule board, almost every spot blares with an engagement -- trip to Gyeongju Hotel, return to Seoul at dawn, have an interview with CBS, then head to a persimmon festival, then Hong Kong... And on it goes.

Lee, 31, the first generation of Korean B-boys and leader of Expression, the winner of international contest Battle of the Year 2002, is feeling the trend that B boys are hot. They are so hot that he himself sometimes can't bear it.

"These schedules were cut down to one third the offers we received," he said in his two-room office in northern Seoul, which doubles as a hip hop school for B-boy aspirants.

"Things really changed a lot," he said, "Now, B boys are the goose that lay the golden eggs."

Once seen as troublemakers with disturbing reggae hairstyles and piercings, South Korean B boys are climbing the social ranks to the center of show business and to the pride of the nation. Big corporations like LG and Kia feature the street dancers as their new brand model, and foreign theaters are making reservations ahead for their appearance next year. Even the next Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the U.S., is to screen a documentary about the Korean B boys.

So, why are the Korean boys so good at hip hop dancing and how have they grown so tall in a country that once treated them as low-life street bums? B-boys, referring to fans of the hip-hop culture who express their feelings through acrobatic body movements, began to appear in Korea in the late 1980s, much later than they emerged in New York streets in the 1970s among black and Hispanic males.

Fascinated by Michael Jackson's moonwalking, local star singers like Park Nam-jung and Hyun Jin-young imitated the moves in their TV appearances.

There was one particular moment when the American B-boy movement spread to Korea and the rest of the world, according to a book titled "Daehanminguk B-boy" by Kim Hyo-keun, a Korean star B-boy also known as Physicz. A leading B-boy crew at that time, the New York City Breakers, performed dazzling moves during a parade for Ronald Reagan's inauguration ceremony in 1985, which was broadcast live around the globe. Its charm and techniques were spread by word of mouth and formed a trend among underground club dancers in Itaewon, the main hangout for American soldiers stationed in Korea, the book says.

With no learning guides and no B-boying stage, the Korean aspirants practiced in aerobic halls and subways and parks to imitate headspins and windmills they saw on video. To the boys donning reggae hair and hip-hop pants, people typically shot reproaching looks. Nam Hyun-joon, also known as Poppin Hyun Joon, shared the tough times.

"Thinking of that time, now I wonder how we could do that," Nam, 28, said.

"Going out in groups, we took showers and cleansed our hair with cold water in winter. We couldn't even think of having a practice room. We danced at night clubs, rock cafes. They don't open in the daytime, so we met in front of banks and parks. To us, wearing hip hop pants with reggae hair, taxis didn't stop for us."

Such accusations pushed them further to the rebellious edge.

One day when they were walking the streets, with their hair dyed crimson and yellow, a cop stopped them and took them to a police station. The police ordered them to take off all their clothes and scolded them for disturbing the social order.

"At that moment, I made up my mind to become a powerful person.

If I didn't dance, I would have become a very famous star -- a star in the underground devil world," he said, cracking a smile.

Nam is now up to his head in CF calls after starring in an LG mobile phone and Kia car ads. He also now calls himself a choreographer who directed the dancing part of B Boy Korea, a show that opened in Seoul's Star Six Chongdong Art Hall on Saturday and was produced by PMC Production that made the hugely successful non-verbal percussion show "Cookin'" (locally known as Nanta).

A B-boy show is now the hottest selling entertainment item. A team earns 3 to 4 million won (US$3,000-4,000) for a 20-minute show from enterprises who are eager to borrow their image of high energy, passion and a die-hard spirit in their launch parties or commercials, says Bear Park, the manager of the internationally-renowned B-boy crew Last For One, which won the 2005 Battle of the Year. He called the demand "explosive."

"Before, they saw them through biased glasses. But now they think that these boys are the world champions," he said.

Last For One now eyes the stage abroad. After performing in the United States in January and February, the crews are scheduled to tour five cities in Britain as part of its Vibraphonic Festival, then to Dubai in April. Also, their success story will be screened as the documentary "Planet B Boy" directed by Benson Lee at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival in January, he said.

Once the outcast of the disciplined Korean society, the young dancers are taking steps to settle the sizzling boom as a cultural genre. The Last For One crews hope to build a B-boy academy where younger ones can receive systematic training. Poppin Hyun Joon and the Expression leader Lee think the same. The results were a series of B boy shows that have emerged since last year with a creative fusion of hip hop dancing and Korean traditional music or ballet, which they directed or produced.

"Some say 'the B boy spirit was lost, it's not original underground any more,' Lee said.

"They say that because their stomachs are full. Most of my friends gave this up because they couldn't make a living," he said, "I hope that doesn't happen anymore. I hope they do what they love and get married and have children."

Seoul, Nov. 28 (Yonhap News)