FULL NAME Lee Yiyoung 이이영
OTHER NAMES NICKNAMES BIRTH DATE January 3, 1999
BIRTH PLACE Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea
HOMETOWN Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea
NATIONALITY South Korean
ETHNICITY Korean PRONOUNS She/her
UALITY Heteroual LANGUAGES

 

 

 

FACE CLAIM Jisun, fromis_9
BACK UP Jiwon, fromis_9 APPEARANCE
In all honesty, Yiyoung wouldn’t consider herself beautiful, not with her small monolid eyes and relatively large and flat nose. However, she has already grown to like the way she looks, and this also includes being rather vertically challenged at 158 cm.

This is because the way she presents herself more than makes up for it. She has the ability to look like she’s a badass and is ready to steal your heart, and in the next moment, there’s a girl next door charm to her. While she does admit that makeup helps contribute significantly in navigating across various images she puts out, her features act as a great foundation for her to work her magic on others.

With her weight at 50 kg, it’s definitely cutting close to being considered “overweight” for female idols. But they don’t realise that such a weight is a healthy one, which comes as a result of intensive dance training and frequent body work-outs. She has lean muscles found on mainly her arms and legs and defined 11-line abs that many people yearn for.

Because she likes her natural hair colour, she’s not particularly fond of dyeing her hair, stopping at getting highlights and nothing more than that at the moment. She has two lobe piercings on each ear, a helix piercing on her left ear and a conch piercing on her left ear. She also has no plans on getting tattoos anytime soon. STYLE
Yiyoung would say that she’s “basic” when it comes to her dressing, given that she mostly sticks to T-shirts, pants, jeans, shorts and occasionally, skirts. Part of the reason why she doesn’t dress up often is due to her work as a dancer and choreographer, so she would much prefer comfort in what she wears. However, that’s not to say that she doesn’t make it a point to look presentable. When the situation calls for a dressier style, she has clothing just for the occasion.

She’s not very particular with accessories either, usually seen wearing sneakers or the occasional boots or flats. However, she’s a bit more selective when it comes to makeup, preferring natural makeup suitable for everyday wear as compared to more dramatic or colourful makeup.

 

 

 

ISFJ, Phlegmatic-sanguine, 4w3, Hufflepuff, Neutral good Amiable, caring, quick-witted, calm, self-sacrificing, self-critical, overextended, bitter Besides being known as a really talented dancer, there’s another thing that Yiyoung is known for, especially among people working in the K-pop industry. That is none other than her sisterly vibes. Maybe that’s a result of becoming a trainee at such a young age, constantly needing to get used to things quickly and become wiser. Some might say that it robbed her of a childhood, others might say that knowing how to navigate the brutalities of life at a younger age isn’t a bad thing. It’s about perspective.

In any case, Yiyoung’s become someone that others can depend on, no matter what happens. Someone is feeling a little lost and would really appreciate some company? Yiyoung will give them a smile, introduce herself and keep them company for as long as they need. Something bad happened to you and you need someone to listen to your rants? Yiyoung will be there to provide a listening ear, and some tissues if needed. Something urgently cropped up and the people involved need to quickly think of a solution to overcome the problem? Not to worry, Yiyoung might just have an idea right up her sleeve. Speaking of her ability to think quickly on her feet, this stems primarily from the fact that she’s not really surprised or even fazed by pretty much anything happening around her. Her ability to stay calm might just be what others need whenever they are facing an issue or even a crisis.

But, of course, it’s not wrong for people to say that training to be an idol at such a young age has its drawbacks. For one, she always puts others before herself. Such training comes with the understanding that her opinions aren’t always the most important, it’s others like instructors or trainees or the general public that take precedence. It doesn’t matter how much she likes something or hates it, it is what another person likes or hates. She has been conditioned to look at herself and find what kind of faults she has from within, even when the situation is not always something she has control over. She’s always happy to see other people succeed, to the point where she could be running a risk of squandering an opportunity that is presented to her, or possibly being taken advantage of, or overlooking another person’s faults.

She’s extremely kind, to the point where she doesn’t mind taking a whole lot of responsibilities, just happy to see that things turn out well. She’s constantly trying to juggle things, trying to survive in a harsh and unkind world out there and not get stomped over (though that might’ve just happened to her). But as kind as she is, she isn’t exactly happy. She’s not that satisfied with her current condition, being put to the sidelines and always never enough to make it to the forefront. And not to mention that she’s worked so so hard to try to achieve her dreams of having the spotlight shine on her. Despite the dissatisfaction, she’s quick to brush it aside, to take yet another chance to achieve her dream before it finally gets taken away from her.

 

 

 

It’s nowhere near a stretch to say that Yiyoung has been raised to dance ever since she was born. Both her father and mother are accomplished ballroom dancers, having competed in numerous local dancesport competitions and represented South Korea overseas, and currently operating a school to groom young ballroom dancers. As such, both Yiyoung and her older brother of three years, Seokwoo, learned various dances such as waltz, rumba and foxtrot.

Her brother would later go on to learn jazz, contemporary dance and hip hop, gaining recognition for his dancing talent, participating in local and international competitions, becoming a backup dancer for multiple artists in South Korea and overseas, and most recently became a choreographer and instructor at the famous 1Million Dance Studio in 2017.

Needless to say, Yiyoung hopes to be like her brother- an accomplished dancer. Even though her parents are completely fine with their children doing something completely different from dance and did not want to give pressure on their children to follow in their footsteps, she went ahead to learn jazz and hip hop with their full support. She later became a part of her dance academy’s dance team. She also participated in multiple competitions held in Seoul, even managing to win awards and prizes in some of the competitions she was a part of.

By the time she was ten years old, she had participated in at least fifteen dance competitions in Seoul and its neighbouring cities. She wasn’t expecting a staff from Pledis Entertainment to be searching for hopefuls to become part of the company, or that she would catch this particular staff’s eye. Out of curiosity, she auditioned for the company. The fact that Pledis Entertainment accepted her as a trainee was a testament to her potential of being a star. The next thing to do was to accept their offer, sign on the dotted line and start training to become a K-pop idol.

 

 

 

☆ She likes fruit teas, the colour lilac, vegetables, historical and crime fiction, animated movies and exercise.
☆ She dislikes tight-fitting clothes, cold noodle dishes, instant noodles, soju, neon colours and beef steaks.
☆ She has a habit of cooking all of her meals (if possible), eating kimchi as part of her meals and going for a morning jog every day.
☆ She enjoys exercising, solving word searches and crossword puzzles and bike riding.
☆ Her dislike of beef steaks is due to them usually being too tough for her to chew, hence she only opts for steak strips or beef cubes.
☆ If not for her strong interest in being a K-pop idol, Yiyoung reckons that she most likely will become a dance instructor or choreographer instead.
☆ Singers she listens to regularly include Keshi, Conan Grey, Lauv, Yerin Baek and BIBI.
☆ Out of the more well-known street dance styles that she has learned, the only one she hasn’t attempted to do is breakdancing. Not because she doesn’t like it, but because she still has some concerns over injuring herself while doing headspins or something similar to that.
☆ No matter how busy she is, she always hits the gym at least once a week.
☆ She obtained her motorcycle license when she was 20 years old. She currently owns a Yamaha Ray ZR, which her brother helped her buy (and now she’s in debt paying him back in installments).
☆ Whenever giving someone a birthday gift, she’ll always give a small handwritten card alongside it.
☆ She wouldn’t say that she’s particularly good at art and design, though she considers herself decent when it comes to doodling.
☆ She prefers subs over dubs, as she thinks that dubbing causes words or phrases from the original language the drama or movie it was in to be lost in translation. Furthermore, dubs don’t do a very good job in capturing emotions from the film’s original acting.
☆ Of the animated films she has watched to date, her favourite film would have to be Kiki’s Delivery Service. She’s especially a fan of Jiji the cat.
☆ At present, she only has an Instagram account, @onlyyeong.i, which she set up in 2018. She mainly posts dance practices, occasional song covers and snapshots of her life and what’s happening around her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PLOTLINE The Insider
TALENT TWIN Hyoyeon, Girls’ Generation
BACK UP Yeji, ITZY or Ryujin, ITZY TRAINEE YEARS PAST EXPERIENCES ELABORATION
When Yiyoung became a trainee at Pledis Entertainment, she was merely ten years old. Maybe because of the fact that she started training to be a K-pop idol at an extremely young age, the trainers were a little easier on her at the beginning, though she wasn’t spared from a scolding if she messes up a note or makes a mistake in a dance routine.

Slowly but surely, her training began to intensify, and scolding and even yelling became more commonplace for her. By then, her vocals, dance and rap have improved significantly, so she was spared from harsh criticism more often than not. In fact, out of the three skills, she was singled out for her dancing abilities, which only got better by the day.

In 2016, news that Pledis Entertainment is planning to debut a girl group made its way towards the female trainees under the company. With her extensive training and skills, there’s no denying that Yiyoung has a good chance of making it to the group’s final lineup. She was even a part of the predebut group, Pledis Girlz, for a while. However, it soon became apparent that her vocal and rap colour did not match the innocent, girl next door image that Pledis Entertainment had for the group. It didn’t take long after the formation of Pledis Girlz for Yiyoung to be removed from the group. But even though she ultimately was not able to debut as a member of PRISTIN, she didn’t blame any of the group members for it, since they’ve also trained for years and are incredibly talented, too.

Yiyoung would later find out that perhaps being a member of PRISTIN isn't necessarily that good a thing, not with how the group went inactive by mid-2018. She may have not been able to debut, but even if she debuted in PRISTIN, what difference did it make if she isn’t able to perform or release songs? But more importantly, is Pledis Entertainment the company she would want to make her debut under?

Eventually, Yiyoung made the decision to terminate her contract and leave Pledis Entertainment in June 2019, after 10 years of being a trainee.

The good thing is that she didn’t spend the entirety of her trainee period at Pledis Entertainment just practising singing and dancing and rapping. She had the opportunity to work as a backup dancer for several K-pop artists, allowing her to meet various idols and make connections within the dancing world. Dance was something that she delved more deeply into when she was a free agent, she gained some recognition for being a dancer and even had the opportunity to work on choreography.

But the thing is, she wanted to be an idol, to have the spotlight on her. She doesn’t want to stop at being just a backup dancer or choreographer, only doing work behind the scenes.

Grindell Entertainment approached her with good news in March 2021, promising her that not only will she be able to make her debut by the end of the year, she will also be able to continue her work as a backup dancer and choreographer. As such, she happily signed on to the label, despite it being virtually an unknown company. There’s still a chance that she might be able to catapult herself into fame.

She would later meet Hyerin a couple of months later, another very experienced trainee with a whole lot of talent, and Aeri, who’s not so great skill-wise, but has a lot of heart. She’s definitely more than happy that the both of them would be part of Fleurette, the girl group Grindell Entertainment was planning to debut, and be able to reach her dreams and achieve success as part of a K-pop group.

That is, until the company went bankrupt, and had to close down, leaving herself, Hyerin and Aeri without a company.

But despite debut plans falling through, Yiyoung still wants to give another shot at being an idol while she still can. Though she could still find work if being a K-pop idol doesn’t turn out well, she doesn’t want to call it quits just yet.

 

 

 

If you were a member of a K-pop group, what would your position be?
“A main dancer, that’s quite certain. And maybe a rapper or even lead rapper? And a vocalist, of course.”

Yiyoung’s very truthful with regard to her skill level- dance is definitely her strongest suit, with rapping in second place. Her singing level is decent, and she’s still trying to improve it, but at the end of the day, she’s still got something she’s strong at to fall back on. Out of 10, how talented would you consider yourself?
“An 8 out of 10, perhaps? I’m aware my strongest suit is in dancing, and I can rap relatively well, but there’s not really anything special about my singing. Oh, and I’ve done choreography work before.”

It’s quite likely that the public will also rate her skills and talents 8 out of 10, but some might think that she’s underestimating herself. Some might give her a 9 or even 10 or even 11 out of 10 instead, mainly for her dancing and choreography abilities. Why do you want to be a K-pop idol?
“Having learned dance from such a young age and trained for so long, I’ve come to realise that being able to stand on stage and hear the audience’s applause for putting on such a good show is something that I really want. I’m aware that people are going to talk about my age if I manage to debut as a K-pop idol, but that’s not going to stop me from achieving what I want or give up on my dreams.”

While she’s been telling the truth, what she doesn’t mention is her feelings towards her work as a backup dancer. Yes, she’s still performing on stage, but it’s not the same as being the performer (or rather, the K-pop idol or singer) who’s the centre of attention. Do you have good stage presence and charisma? What about star quality?
“I’d like to think that I have good stage presence, and can draw attention to myself when it’s needed. After all, it’s always about having fun on stage. Star-quality wise, I hope I’m likeable enough that the audience will support me in what I do.”

If there’s one thing that instructors have commented on, it is that aside from her well-rounded technique, Yiyoung’s visuals is what makes her look like she’s allowing herself to fully immerse in the choreography, something that is not commonly found in idols. Hyerin has also told her that she’s got a nice personality, and if anyone doesn’t like her, there’s definitely something wrong with them. Would you consider yourself a team player?
“Oh, definitely. No one can escape from needing to work as part of a team, so it’s very important to listen to instructions if needed, and resolve any conflict quickly to allow everyone in the team to be able to move forward.”

Yiyoung knows the importance of being a good team player, and she will play her part and not create problems. Given her age and experience, it’s likely that she’ll be elected as the leader, which she sees as an even greater responsibility on her hands. And when that happens, she has a good idea on what she should do, except she might not be so great at drawing boundaries at the moment.