Handong’s (Repeat) Return, Siyeon Day, and Dreamcatcher’s Talented Abracadabra

K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall

Week 40 in 2020 restarts the Handong reunion clock, celebrates Siyeon’s birthday, and wows Insomnias with a talented Brown Eyed Girls cover.

Even though Dreamcatcher’s “BOCA” promotions are long since over, there’s still news and content coming out of the group. Those who’ve been fans for a while know that they’ve been particularly generous with content, but this week, in particular, was a bit busier, for a variety of reasons.

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The biggest news showed up on October 2nd. A newly blonde Handong reported in from Beijing Capital International Airport, immediately confusing fans who had seen her on her way back to South Korea on September 25th.

According to a translation of the update from 7 Dreamers, it seems Handong made it all the way to Seoul, only to be turned away and sent back to China by the airport and medical staff, who’d seen her sweating it up slightly in a hoodie and shorts rushing to catch her flight and flagged her down to take her temperature. With COVID-19 still wreaking havoc out there, no one was taking chances.

Testing turned out negative, but that meant Dreamcatcher fans had to pull a Pacific Rim and reset the clock on Handong’s quarantine. Looks like she’ll be out by just after mid-October now, but that’s fine — the most important thing, to everyone during these challenging times, is health and safety.

Not to be outdone by blonde Handong, Siyeon, who officially celebrated her 25th birthday this past week, revealed that she’s joined the blonde ranks as well, something she says she just felt like doing but which might be the stopgap to a brand new color entirely.

After seeing Siyeon rock the black and blue look for almost two months and darker hair for the better part of the year, this was certainly a refreshing change for Dreamcatcher’s main vocalist.

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Fans were also treated to a nice partial rendition of “Paradise” and “Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind” — you know, just in case you were too distracted by the new hair color, Siyeon’s baby pictures, trademark baby crying impression, and her hugging a MINX pillow of “senior Siyeon” to remember she can pull out those talented pipes at any time. A V Live well worth watching.

Speaking of talent, the post-promotion, pre-recorded variety appearances continued to trickle out, with IDOLLIVE’s new “Ontact Fan Meeting” show premiering with Dreamcatcher as its first guests. The show is meant to turn around the practice of idol gifting back to the fans, allowing idols to give a little back to them while showcasing skills and talents. Episode 1 saw Dreamcatcher creating drawings of a lucky Insomnia to give to her. They all did pretty well, but Dami’s was particularly nice since it was a full-body, profile shot.

In their place, I probably would have made a mess of it. Reason #2141 why I couldn’t hack it as a K-Pop idol for sure.

Dreamcatcher was also tested on things about themselves, using the same exam fans used to apply for being included on the show, with hilarious results.

One of the best of these was Yoohyeon giving JiU a hard time stumbling over Yoohyeon’s birthday conversion to clock time, only for Yoohyeon herself to almost mess up on her own birthday and nearly forget Handong’s. That’s clumsy Yoohyeon for you.

As for the rest of the talents, I won’t spoil too much for you, except to say if you’re looking for a flawless talent presentation from Dreamcatcher instead of utter chaos, I think you might be disappointed. Be on the lookout for many literal facedesk moments from the girls.

But even those looking for some serious Dreamcatcher talent won’t have been disappointed this past week. The group, along with others, participated in rally-style choreography covers of older K-Pop classic songs on the M2 YouTube channel, and Dreamcatcher got to do Brown Eyed Girls’ iconic “Abracadabra”. Those of you who’ve been into K-Pop longer may be certainly familiar with the aggressively in-your-face, fierce presentation of the original, but Dreamcatcher, like they usually do, put their own spin on the choreography.

Earlier in the week on the Ontact Fan Meeting show, Yoohyeon described one requirement of being an Insomnia as being “open-minded” since there are some pretty high limits Dreamcatcher is willing to go to for a good and accurate stage performance.

I don’t think she was kidding. Anyone else still with me?

This was a great cover for a variety of reasons, but mostly because not only did Dreamcatcher capture the “stage sexy” presence of the original, but also made it a bit goofy, too. You can tell in just these screenshots that the group is having fun doing this and is going purposefully and hilariously over the top for some of the portions choreography. Having that kind of personality is big for being relatable to your fans — even if you’re making their brains stop for a few seconds with what you’re doing.

Other things you may have not caught this week from Dreamcatcher world (courtesy of the /r/dreamcatcher subreddit):

• Yoohyeon telling a tale of how she almost ended up as an MBK Entertainment trainee instead of for Happyface Entertainment.
• Yoohyeon still not having told her mother about her tattoos (I’ve been there, Yoohyeon, I know the feeling).
• Siyeon confirming that not only is Handong back in South Korea but that they’ve talked to her.
• JiU and her dog Cherry drop in for a V Live, with some funny results when she tries to get her to high-five her.

As always, Dreamcatcher fans aren’t starving for content, even between promotions. With KCON:tact Season 2 coming up for October 18th, Dreamcatcher themselves will certainly be busy after a well-deserved Chuseok holiday break, so I’m looking forward to next week’s content!