Rino Nakasone, a top Japanese dance choreographer, who counts our 9 ladies as one of her proteges recently gave an interview on xinmsn……

Xinmsn, the entertainment portion of MSN news based in Singapore, recently posted on-line their interview with Rino Nakasone, a well-known choreographer who has worked with many SM Entertainment artistes on their dance moves in their award-winning music videos (inclusive of our beloved 9 ladies).

Rino was the one responsible for the dance choreography for our ladies’ hit music videos “Genie”, “Oh!”, “Hoot”, “Mr.Taxi”.

I must say that the contents of the interview were most insightful indeed, and so I felt that it ought to be shared with the SONEs here on SNSDKorean.

(My sincere apologies beforehand to any Singapore SONE who has already read the interview on-line at the xinmsn portal).

Here then is the verbatim interview with Rino. Enjoy !!!

Rino Nakasone is no stranger to K-Pop fans.

Born in Okinawa, Japan, then 19-year-old Rino decided to leave her native country, in search of her dream — to dance with Michael Jackson. In a daring move, Rino bought a ticket to Los Angeles and never regretted her decision till this very day.

On Jul 10, Rino attended The Big Groove 2011, an annual hip-hop dance festival, in Singapore with Beat Freaks, a notable all-female dance crew, of which Rino had been a member since 2004.

Two days before the event, Rino sat down with xinmsn and recalled her rise to fame as a K-Pop choreographer.

In this Internet era, it should come as no surprise that SM Entertainment — the Korean entertainment company that houses some of K-Pop’s biggest names such as Super Junior, Girls’ Generation and SHINee — found Rino on Youtube.

“Thanks to Youtube,” Rino laughed.

The company contacted her and the next thing she knew, she was churning out dances for the groups, and having Korean netizens coming up with “funny” names for her dances. For example, the leg-kicking routine in Girls’ Generation ‘Genie’ was called the ‘shuttle-kicking dance’.

Responding to that, the vivacious girl laughed heartily and said, “Oh, cool! So that’s how it looks like, huh?”

Rino also revealed that her inspirations for a dance comes from the music itself and that she usually begins her creation of the dance after listening to the songs for “about a hundred times”.

“The main thing is to show the song in the best way,” Rino added.

The first dance Rino choreographed for SM Entertainment was Korean boy band SHINee’s debut song, ‘Replay’. She recalled the first time she met the five young lads.

(Clockwise from top left) Minho, Rino, Key, Taemin, Onew and Jonghyun  (Image from Rino’s Twitter account)

“Oh my god, they’re so cute,” Rino raved, “That was like three years ago. They’re like my ‘babies’. They were so fresh and ready to learn. They were also respectful and hard workers.”

She also named the SM Entertainment idols whom she shared a stronger bond with.

“They’re people I talk about dance the most with, like SHINee’s Taemin, Girls’ Generation’s Hyo-yeon and f(x)’s Amber,” Rino said.

(L to R) Taemin from SHINee, Hyo-yeon from Girls’ Generation and Amber from f(x)

If Taemin, Hyoyeon, Super Junior’s Eunhyuk and TVXQ’s Yunho — generally believed to be the best dancers from each team — battled out on the dance floor, who would win?

Rino first protested “it’s not fair” and explained that she would have to see the four do the same choreography before she could rate them.

Out of all her choreographies for SM artistes, Rino listed SHINee’s ‘Love Like Oxygen’, TVXQ’s ‘Maximum’, which she co-created with Jaewon from SM Entertainment, and Girls’ Generation’s ‘Genie’ her favourites.

Before she found success as a K-Pop dance choreographer, Rino had toured with American singer-songwriter Gwen Stefani as one-quarter of Harajuku Girls in 2004, contested in the third season of America’s Best Dance Crew and worked with various international artistes including Janet Jackson, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber.

Reminiscing her days with Gwen, Rino gushed, “She [Gwen Stefani] was looking for Japanese girls for her solo project and I pounced on the chance. I [took on the moniker] ‘Music’ and that was one of the best experiences in my life and dance career!”

She added that she “learnt a lot” from Gwen — “a hardworking person who treats everyone with respect,” she stressed — and it was the experiences with Gwen that gave her chances to be on award shows which she had always dreamt to be on.

During the interview, the 32-year-old admitted that she is a dreamer.

“Someone who imagines it in her head,” Rino clarified, before adding, “I imagined that this [dancing in LA] is possible; but imagining it is not enough. You got to take action.”

Those were definitely inspiring words, not only for aspiring professional dancer wannabes, but also anyone with a dream.

What is dance to her then?

“I love it. It’s the way I can express myself and I feel right when I perform. It makes me who I am,” Rino smiled.

by: Kenneth@snsdkorean

sources: www.xinmsn.com, Joelle Chong (article text and photos), shizzles9@soshified.com