K-pop Club members danced at the Roberts Elementary International Festival on Oct. 18.

Juniors Claire Lee and Jenny Sun as well as Carnegie junior Leah Kim started performing at the festival together in their freshman year with the song “Wa Da Da” by Kep1er. They originally attended the festival each year as students of Roberts and then alumni.

“I-fest is one of [the] core memories from my childhood,” Sun said. “[It was] my first introduction to the US, and it’s a really good representation of America because we are a melting pot. It’s really refreshing to see a lot of young people embrace their cultures and look so proud.”

Lee wanted to perform at the festival because dance was her favorite class back when she was a student at Roberts. In fifth grade, she had her very first performance at the International Festival, a K-pop dance to the tune of “Go Go” by BTS.

“I think [it’s] wonderful to come back and show children [at Roberts] what they can do in the future,” Lee said.

The next performance in Lee and Sun’s sophomore year, they invited seniors Pranalisree Rajarajan and Kaitlyn Endique to perform with them.

“There’s not many three-member groups, plus we don’t take that much space up on stage,” Lee said. “We decided it’d be more fun if we had a few of our other friends join us.”

The five-member group has since performed “Wannabe” by ITZY and “Ditto” by NewJeans. This year, they chose to perform “Magnetic” by Illit because of its popularity.

But for each of the past performances, the group had practiced together for less than a week.

“We wanted to start practicing early to learn from our previous mistake, which was practicing last minute, so we chose a dance in August,” Rajarajan said. “[But we] just didn’t circle back to it, and we met up for the first time at Roberts on Thursday, the day before the performance.”

With one day of practice under their belts, the group left right after school and arrived at Roberts before their showtime, 5 p.m., and began changing into their matching pink and white outfits. At around 4:50 p.m., Endique heard their call to go up while the other four members were still changing, so she had to rush to get them.

“We grabbed all our stuff, we ran outside and they started announcing us,” Lee said. “We were freaking out because our friends weren’t there yet, our parents weren’t there to record and we weren’t ready yet.”

As the group arrived on stage, the introduction of “Magnetic” began to sound in the background.

“Internally, I was panicking because they were supposed to start the music while we [were] sitting down on stage, but they started it as we were walking in,” Rajarajan said.

The song played on, and the group danced on, performing their minute and 40-second routine.

“I was really nervous [onstage] because I was worried I would mess up,” Endique said.

The final notes rang through the crowd. The dancers posed arms linked, hands splayed, smiles wide. The audience burst into applause, and the performers exited the stage.

“I was disappointed because I felt like all that practice that I crunched up in a day just flew out the window,” Lee said. “Not only did I mess up a bunch of times, but we [also] didn’t have time to prepare [beforehand] and review.”

After some deliberation, the group decided to ask to go one more time after more practice and after their friends and family arrived.

“We just wanted to put our best foot forward again,” Sun said. “The music starting early was really off-putting, so I didn’t feel like [we] gave our best performance.”

The dancers sat in formation, waiting for the music. As the familiar notes sounded once more, they jumped into the performance, this time without a hitch.

“I was relieved it went smoothly [the second time],” Endique said. “I was happy that we pulled it together.”

Lee felt that this year, she saw more support from the Roberts Elementary students than past years.

“We saw babies and little kids standing around [the] stage and jumping up and down in the back, which is really cute,” Lee said. “I feel like we’re leaving more of an impact every year. It made me feel amazing because I feel like I always look down on my dancing, but there’s always a younger person that’ll cheer for me.”

The group plans to continue performing at future Roberts events, such as the upcoming Lunar New Year event and beyond. Even once Rajarajan and Endique graduate, the bond between the group will last.

“We’re very sad to see them go,” Sun said. “There’s no replacement for Pranali and Kaitlyn. We might have to snatch them from wherever they’re going to college.”