As some of IZ*ONE’s fans are doing everything in their power to revive their ult group, one of its members—dancer and vocalist Lee Chaeyeon—is forging ahead with her solo career.
Her agency WM Entertainment recently announced that Chaeyeon is set to participate in Mnet’s female dance crew survival show Street Woman Fighter as a crew member. She’ll be part of the crew WANT, which also includes Hyojin Choi, star choreographer of the famed 1MILLION Dance Studio.
Street Woman Fighter is Mnet’s first female dance crew survival show. It will see eight crews, all of whom are from South Korea, compete for the top prize. They are expected to showcase different types of street dance, like breakdancing, hip-hop, krumping, locking, and waacking.
Soloist Kang Daniel will be the show’s MC. It’s a fitting role for the ex-Wanna One center, because he started breakdancing in eighth grade and went on to win a gold medal in the 49th High School Performing Arts tilt. Meanwhile, BoA and NCT’s Taeyong are set to judge the show.
On July 12, Mnet revealed the first mission for Street Woman Fighter on their YouTube channel. All eight teams were assigned one of four hit songs by BoA, CL, HyunA, and Jessi. Two teams will compete against each other while dancing to one of those four songs—but there’s a catch: they must reinterpret their song’s choreography.
Mnet will then count the likes and views of each team's video from July 12 at 11:30 AM KST to July 15 at 11:59 PM KST. The final tally will then be incorporated in the show’s first evaluation, so if you want Chaeyeon and her crew to win, watch the above video on YouTube, then give it a Like.
It can be argued that Chaeyeon has an edge over the other competitors because of her experience on Produce 48 and other survival shows. She also became known as one of the K-pop industry’s most talented dancers during her time in IZ*ONE. After the project group finally disbanded in April, Chaeyeon dropped a dance cover of Justin Bieber’s “Peaches” that has earned millions of views.
Some of her fans weren’t too pleased about the news that she would be competing on Street Woman Fighter. They complained that it’s as if WM Entertainment doesn’t know what to do with Chaeyeon now that IZ*ONE is kaput, so they shoved her into a survival show while they get their act together.
Such accusations are probably without merit, as WM Entertainment has been working on debuting a new girl group for quite some time now. Since they’re not ready to do that yet, putting Chaeyeon in a survival show will give her something to do while they finalize their plans. Chaeyeon’s stint on this new show will be good publicity for their new girl group—if she’ll be included in the final lineup.
WM Entertainment’s upcoming girl group is reportedly called Ggumnamu, aka Dream Tree. Rumor has it that Lee Seunghyun and Cho Yeongin, who competed alongside Chaeyeon on Produce 48, will be this new group’s lead vocalist and lead dancer, respectively. As of this writing, however, there have been no new updates about Ggumnamu aka Dream Tree. If Chaeyeon ends up joining them, she’ll most likely be their leader, main dancer, and lead vocalist.
In the meantime, Chaeyeon’s fans can catch her on the first episode of Street Woman Fighter, which will be aired on August 24.
Watch her dance cover of "Peaches" below.
