SHINee’s Taemin Is So Good At Dancing That Even One Of His Choreographers Was Shocked

“Especially because as a solo act, Taemin’s a monster.”

SHINee Taemin‘s dancing prowess never comes as a surprise to fans. He has an innate ability to make the most challenging choreography look easy and seamlessly pull off any concept and style.

10 Times SHINee’s Taemin Proved He’s The Very Definition Of Dance

And now, Taemin’s skills have been verified by choreographer Ian Eastwood who worked both on the choreography for Taemin’s solo “Danger” and SHINee’s “View.”

SHINee’s “View” was the first K-Pop group choreography that Ian Eastwood had done, and he talks about how much more difficult it is to come up with K-Pop choreography than choreography he’s made for Western artists.

In American music videos it’s very normal for you to come in and just set a breakdown and a chorus. For a K-Pop video, you are literally doing top to bottom [choreography] with staging for all of the members, and highlighting each member for each section. So if there’s two or three people on a verse you not only have to come up with the choreography, but figure out how you’re going to transition three times.

-Ian Eastwood

SHINee’s “View” 

Ian Eastwood also revealed his surprise at SM Entertainment continually asking him to make the choreography harder.

I remember that I was starting to get comments of “We want it harder.” Because I thought it was more like American style commercial choreography. And then I got a couple of comments like “Yo, make it harder.”

-Ian Eastwood

(Small screen) Clay Boonthanakit (left) and Ian Eastwood (right) | STEEZY/YouTube

But while “View” was his first time choreographing for a group, SM Entertainment was already familiar with his work since he had previously choreographed Taemin’s “Danger.”

Ian Eastwood shared that he thought he was chosen to choreograph for Taemin for a particular reason.

I was the same age [as Taemin] and [had] that vibe and dance of a young up-and-coming dancer choreographer guy and so then [with] the body type and everything, they were just like “Oh we should pair [Taemin] with this young up-and-coming choreographer.

-Ian Eastwood

Taemin (left) and Ian Eastwood (right) | STEEZY/YouTube

And Ian Eastwood and Taemin actually worked together on the choreography, with Taemin coming to America to learn the choreography directly from Ian Eastwood.

And although they couldn’t communicate because of the language barrier, Ian Eastwood expressed that despite communicating through miming, the teaching process was actually incredibly simple.

It was us just miming to each other and he got everything. Everything. He worked so hard. He worked super hard.

-Ian Eastwood

| STEEZY/YouTube

Ian Eastwood shared that he really felt like he had a lot of freedom in the choreography because of Taemin’s talent, so he could try some unique styles.

[Taemin’s] really good. It was different, I remember that people felt like it was different for the time for sure. Especially because as a solo act, [Taemin’s] a monster.

-Ian Eastwood

Taemin’s “Danger” 

And Ian Eastwood even remembered that just like with “View,” he had to keep increasing the difficulty of Taemin’s choreography.

Oh, I remember this was crazy. We actually did three alternate solos for him and they kept coming back to me like “Harder, harder, harder.” I was like “What? This dude’s gonna pass out, I can barely do this.” They’re like “Duh, we’re sure.” And then I taught him and he was like “Yeah, alright, cool.”

-Ian Eastwood

And even watching Taemin’s dance practice for “Danger” years later, Ian Eastwood still can’t help but admire him.

He’s got crazy stage presence.

-Ian Eastwood

And while it isn’t a surprise for fans to hear how incredible of a dancer Taemin is, Ian Eastwood’s experience with the idol only further cements Taemin as a dancing legend.

You can watch the dance video for SHINee’s “View” here.

You can watch the dance video for Taemin’s “Danger” here.

SHINee