We recently connected with Erica Manzano and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Erica thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Our most meaningful project would have to be our ‘K-Lovers Dance Showcase: Into the KOSMIX’ that we hosted last summer in collaboration with the Korean Consulate of Seattle. The Consulate approached us in early 2023 about putting on an event to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the alliance between South Korea and the United States. We had been wanting to put on a dance showcase where our members could display the hard work and talent they had cultivated over the past couple of years. We were so excited to have the support of the Consulate in funding and marketing the event in Seattle. After three full months of preparation, we held our showcase at the E.E. Bach Theatre for an audience of over 250 people. KOSMIX performed 10 sets and invited 10 guest performers from the Seattle area to perform alongside us.

It was an amazing experience to be able to perform for our friends, family, and the Seattle K-Pop community. The core of K-Pop fan culture is about coming together to enjoy our favorite artists and cheer each other on at community events.. At “Into the KOSMIX”, you could really feel the energy of the crowd enjoying the performances, and the dancers reflected that enthusiasm right back by giving their all on stage. This sort of give-and-take is similar to the type of connection we feel when we see our favorite artists in concert. Since K-Pop artists are based in South Korea, international fans often have to wait several years for their favorite groups to go on tour. That’s why fans flock together and put on events as often as they can. The showcase was an extension of that zeitgeist and yet still felt so personal for us as we got to celebrate with our local community. It was an experience that we don’t always get to feel on that big of a scale but something we would love to do again in the future.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We are KOSMIX, a Seattle-based K-Pop cover group established in 2021. K-Pop, or Korean pop, is a genre of music based on artists trained and produced in South Korea. K-Pop groups are known for their intricate choreography and a big part of K-Pop culture is learning the dances to your favorite songs. Our group is composed of 30+ members, from university students to working adults, who practice and film dance cover videos. Our dancers bring a wide range of dance styles and backgrounds, as well as experience in other creative work such as videography, photography, and editing. Many of our members founded and danced together in the first K-Pop cover group at the University of Washington, THE KOMPANY. As members graduated, we decided to move away from the student-based club to create a new group that worked around our work schedules. Over the past three years, we’ve had many new members join us, creating a strong and close-knit friend group that enjoys filming and dancing together.

Not only do we film covers, we also host events and invite our audience to attend our open filming sessions. Anyone interested in the cover process is welcome to watch while we film in public around the city, and they can sometimes participate by joining in for cameo moments! We also love bringing the community together by hosting Random Play Dance (RPD) events, on our own or in collaboration with other groups/events. Before an RPD, we ask our audience to submit songs and we create a mix of the most popular ones. Then at the event, our dancers and the attendees take to the dance floor for any songs they know the choreography to. It’s a fun, judgment-free zone for K-Pop fans to meet and dance together.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

KOSMIX aims to elevate the level of quality, creativity, and community within the Seattle K-Pop community through our videos and events.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

It may be hard for non-creatives to understand why we put so much time and effort into a group that we don’t actually make money from. Our dancers dedicate hours to learning choreography, practicing and cleaning as a group, and filming/editing/producing high quality videos that we release on almost a weekly basis. It takes a lot of dedication from our members and the leadership team to continuously put out new covers. What others might not understand is that KOSMIX is a labor of love, not only for our audience but for each other. At our core, KOSMIX is a group of really good friends that just want to hang out and make dance videos together. We put in all of this work to show our respect for and kinship with one another. It can feel stressful and overwhelming at times but it’s because we care so much about showing up for our team and making quality art together.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kosmix.official?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/kosmixofficial

Image Credits

Tiffany Tian
Alfred Escorpiso
Roy Huang