The Korean Cultural Center to Belgium and the E.U.(Director KIM Dongeun, hereinafter referred to as the Cultural Center) held a K-pop dance flash mob event with the local Korean Wave community at the Galeries Royales Saint Hubert, a tourist attraction in downtown Brussels, on the afternoon of Saturday, October 7, 2023.

Rue Saint-Hubert, where the flash mob was held, is one of the oldest shopping streets in Europe and is visited by more than 6 million tourists every year. About 250 people who visited this street, where various cultures coexist, including performance halls, movie theaters, and chocolate shops, stopped and had fun together to the rhythm of K-pop.

About 30 people participated in this flash mob, including past K-Pop Academy graduates, local K-Pop dance clubs such as HarmonyX and Black Ocean, and dance school instructors. Each time a song they knew came on, the participants came to the center and showed off their dancing skills, eliciting enthusiastic responses from the audience filling the area.

Participant Weyckmans Carla said, “I was really happy to hear familiar songs. “I was nervous but happy to be able to show the choreography I practiced with my friends in front of people,” she said.

Bauffe Sophie, who stayed throughout the flash mob, said, “I feel like the energy is conveyed just by watching them dance. “Even though I am over 40, I am a huge fan of K-pop,” she said. “If there is a K-pop dance workshop for middle-aged people, I want to participate.”

Currently, about 300 members are active in 22 K-pop dance clubs in Belgium. The Korean Wave, which has been heating up Brussels for several years, has now spread to local cities, and a K-pop specialty dance studio has recently been opened and operated in the city of Liège.

Some of the graduates who participated in the K-Pop Academy in previous years are currently working as professional K-Pop dance instructors, and at the same time, they have become the mainstay of the local Korean Wave community, contributing greatly to the rooting of Korea's diverse culture in the local area.

In response to the requests of Korean Wave fans, the Korean Cultural Center in Belgium will hold the 8th Belgian K-Pop Academy for 8 days starting October 23. Two instructors, Kim Young-jae and Kim Ji-yoon, who have worked with numerous K-pop groups, will be invited to provide K-pop dance classes at each level to local participants.

Chada Kim, leader and dance instructor of Chicken Squad, a local K-pop dance club, said, “We are currently teaching K-pop dance to about 130 people. She expressed her expectations, saying, “I want to provide better classes to students by learning K-pop dance from professional instructors at the academy this year.”

This year's K-Pop Academy closed its quota of 80 students less than a day after course registration began. It is run in two classes, a basic class for beginners and an advanced class for K-pop dance instructors working locally. On the last day of the academy, a performance by students is also held.