When all of the K-pop conventions are on the West Coast, why not bring one here to the D.C. area?
That’s what sibling duo Ashlee Nanze and Glory “Glow” Ngwe asked themselves before planning the DMV’s first-ever K-pop convention, KaptureCon.
Stream NBC4 newscasts for free right here, right now.
WATCH HEREKaptureCon is on Saturday, May 31, at the National Press Club in D.C., where several activities such as dance classes, trivia and meet-and-greets with artists are planned from noon to 5 p.m.
To close out the day, fans can sing and dance along with K-pop groups like BLACKSWAN at a concert in DAR Constitution Hall.
We have the news you need to know to start your day. Sign up for the First & 4Most morning newsletter — delivered to your inbox daily.
SIGN UP Nanze, a Microsoft engineer and Ngwe, a booking producer for NewsNation, explain why they decided to take the K-pop experience and turn it into a community for both fans and artists.
How did KaptureCon come to be?
Popular K-pop conventions such as KCON are often held in Los Angeles, California, or in overseas countries. When Nanze and Ngwe traveled to KCON in Los Angeles, they noticed that there were a lot of people who had to travel a long way for it.
“Why isn't there one in D.C. or in New York or in the East Coast where people can enjoy that experience without having to travel all that far?” Nanze asked.
Nanze said that deciding to have the convention in D.C. was the easy part. She simply walked into Ngwe’s room and asked, “Do you want to host a K-pop convention?”
“We were just like, ‘OK, let's just, let's just do it, see how it goes, ’” Nanze said.
Planning an entire event for both artists and fans was the more tedious part and for that, they needed a team.
Nanze and Ngwe recruited several people to pull off this event, including operations, design and tech team members. They even have someone on the team who speaks Korean.
“We have somebody who is a person whose only job really is to help with culture and language and they're Korean,” Ngwe said. “We don't know the ins and outs of Korean culture, so we need somebody to give us that nuance so we can implement it because we'll be working with Korean artists.”
What can people expect at KaptureCon?
KaptureCon is a place for building true and genuine connections, Nanze said. The convention’s catchphrase is “capture your experience,” and they emphasize connections between attendees, artist to fan, and between themselves as a team.
“It's basically just the DMV K-pop community coming together and making a K-pop convention, which is really special because we take a little bit of D.C., we put it in there, we take a little bit of K-pop, we put it in there and it's really cool,” Nanze said.
For attendees wanting to show off their best outfits, there’s a fashion show. Fans wanting to show off their best moves can see who's the best in the dance competition.
Of course, a convention can’t be complete without meet-and-greets. Attendees with meet-and-greet add-ons will be able to meet BLACKSWAN, AMPERS&ONE and solo artist Hohyun.
KaptureCon will also host dance workshops featuring renowned dancers and choreographers in the K-pop industry. Annelise, one of the choreographers, has worked with artists such as BTS, Jason Derulo and Bad Bunny. Attendees can check out her master class at the convention.
After photo cards are traded and variety show games are played, attendees with tickets can head over to the DAR Constitution Hall at 6:30 p.m. for the concert. Tickets are still available here. For a full schedule, click here.
Why hosting a K-pop convention by 2 Black women is important in DC
Not only is KaptureCon the first K-pop convention in the DMV, but it’s also run by two Black women. Nanze and Ngwe, both Cameroonian, say that they bring a unique perspective to K-pop as Black fans.
When Ngwe watches K-pop groups, she can see different aspects of Black culture and calls K-pop a “melting pot” of cultures because the genre is “heavily influenced from Black culture.”
“I think that a lot of our culture is instilled in K-pop, whether it comes to fashion, hip hop, R&B,” Ngwe said. “People in K-pop groups have rap positions, right? And that is, you know, culturally founded by Black people, specifically Black Americans.”
Ngwe also mentioned that choosing the artists was important to showing how diverse the K-pop community is. In some K-pop groups, people come from different diasporas of Asia, she said. For example, Sriya from BLACKSWAN is from India.
The differences expand outside of Asia, too. Some members of AMPERS&ONE are from Australia and the U.S. NVee, a member of BLACKSWAN, is a DMV-native born in Northern Virginia.
These groups come together and blend the Korean language with Afrobeats, R&B, hip-hop, pop and more.
“It's like a double-edged sword,” Ngwe said. “You gotta know how much to use, how little to use, you know, how to go about respecting these cultures as you are taking certain parts of them."
Nanze and Ngwe wanted to make sure that attendees saw themselves in the lineup, the dancers and themselves as the executive directors, all in the melting pot that they call D.C.
There’s currently a waitlist to get tickets to the actual convention, but tickets are still available for the concert.
It may be KaptureCon’s first convention, but Nanze and Ngwe want to hold the event annually if the first one is a success.
“We don’t want to speak too soon because…we want to see how it plays out,” Ngwe said. “But we have ambitions to continue this as a yearly event and we have artists in mind.”
“So stay tuned!” Nanze added. "We want to be able to do this again and again and again."
