Taeil of NCT set a world record with his Instagram account, Guinness World Records announced Tuesday in the UK. 　T he idol broke the record for the fastest time to reach 1 million followers on Instagram, as he reached the seven-digit milestone in just one hour and 45 minutes after his first post, it said. 　 He announced on a fandom application that he opened an account on Instagram on July 6. 　 “I never imagined myself becoming a Guinness World Records title holder,” he said after

Though the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has been threatening the local performing arts scene, the National Theater of Korea is gearing up for a new beginning with its 2021-22 season. The theater announced the 2021-22 season program, which includes a total of 56 works slated to run from Sept. 1 to June 30. Most of the works will be presented at the newly renovated Haeoreum Grand Theater, which is to officially open in September. The season will kick off with the National Orchestra of

More classical musicians also creating YouTube channels to communicate with audience

Superband BTS appeared on the popular American talk show "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on Tuesday (US time), putting on its first TV performance of new release "Permission to Dance." The band's seven members appeared holding violet and purple balloons to perform the upbeat track at an indoor stage filled with balloons. Dancers wearing white and orange later joined the band for a group choreography session. It marked the band's first performance of the new song on

K-pop sensation BTS and dozens of top international artists will join Global Citizen Live, a 24-hour broadcast show intended to help fight COVID-19, climate change and extreme poverty in September, the organizer said. Global Citizen, an international advocacy group based in New York, announced details of the global philanthropic concert Tuesday. The epic daylong show will take place Sept. 25, featuring live performances and events filmed in major cities across six continents, including Seoul,

K-pop queen BLACKPINK will be the next act to go on Hybe's growing fan community platform Weverse, its agency said Wednesday. The four-piece act, which already has a massive fan base on YouTube, will join the virtual platform starting Aug. 2, according to YG Entertainment. The move follows a partnership between YG Entertainment and Hybe -- the K-pop powerhouse behind acts like BTS, Tomorrow X Together and Enhypen -- signed in January. The companies, two of the biggest agency-labels in the K-p

The Korean-Thai horror project "The Medium" topped the advance box-office sales in South Korea, raising hopes for a larger-than-expected success despite a surge in novel coronavirus infections, data showed Wednesday. The film, revolving around a family experiencing a shamanistic spiritual inheritance in a rural region of Thailand, recorded over 110,000 presold tickets as of 9 a.m., according to data from the Korean Film Council. It hit the local theaters earlier in the day. It accoun

The music video for “On the Ground,” the solo debut of Blackpink’s Rose, surpassed 200 million views on YouTube on Tuesday, announced label YG Entertainment on the same day.   　 It has been 123 days since the video’s release. It stormed past 100 million views in about a week, the shortest time for a video by a K-pop solo female artist. The song topped iTunes top songs chart in 51 regions and topped both of Billboard’s worldwide tallies, the Global 200 and Bil

“The Devil,” an original Korean musical, has made its way onto the Chinese musical scene as a licensed production. According to co-producers of the musical, Page1 and R&D Works, “The Devil” -- known by the title “Rock Faust” in China -- is set for a 10-city tour across China starting July 23. The musical will be staged in Beijing, Ningbo and Suzhou, among others. The musical had its Chinese premiere at the Shanghai Grand Theatre from May 24-31, with s

Sony Music Entertainment Japan announced Monday that it would team up with K-pop powerhouse JYP Entertainment to launch a new boy band. The two jointly held an online press conference in Korea and Japan to share their plans for the production of the new group, which will be elected through the survival reality program “Nizi Project.” The upcoming audition show will be aired in the latter half of the year. Park Jin-young, the chief of the label, expressed his excitement about cre

K-pop rookie Enhypen has topped a key daily and a weekly music chart in Japan with its debut Japanese single, music tracker Oricon said Tuesday. "Border: Hakanai" ranked No. 1 on Oricon's latest weekly singles chart, selling over 200,000 copies from July 5 to Sunday, according to Oricon News. The band's first Japanese single also sat atop Oricon's daily singles chart for the seventh consecutive day since its release last Tuesday. Enhypen, which debuted in November, is the first amon

The South Korean entertainment scene is suffering a setback in the production of TV shows as the fourth wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic sweeps nearly every sector of the country. Last week, global media giant Netflix suspended the production of its original series "The Bride Of Black" for two weeks as actress Cha Ji-yeon tested positive for the virus. Her case also affected the stage musicals "Red Book" and "Gwanghwamun Sonata," as the actress is currently

K-pop sensation BTS' summery, up-tempo number "Butter" remained atop Billboard's main singles chart for the seventh consecutive week in the group's best chart record since its debut. ""Butter" is officially No. 1 on this week's #Hot100 chart for a seventh week," Billboard said on its Twitter account on Monday (US time). The septet's second English song drew 10.8 million US streams and sold 108,800 downloads in the week ending July 8, it said. The song also attract

Lisa of Blackpink will shoot a music video for her solo debut song this week, label YG Entertainment said Monday. 　 It confirmed an earlier media report that said she would start shooting the video and is set to drop her first solo music this summer. 　 The label announced last year that the members, except for Jennie who was the first to drop her solo album in 2018, will put out solo projects one by one after the release of the band’s full-length album in September. Rose rolled out hers

The 25th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival is screening extended reality (XR) content through its program “Beyond Reality” at Incheon Airport. The program kicked off on July 1 as part of the 25th BIFAN and will continue until Sunday. XR is an umbrella term that is used to indicate all different kinds of real-and-virtual combined environments, encompassing augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality. “XR content are works that are difficult to describe