NCT’s Taeyong Confirms There Were Originally No Plans For A “ZOO” Stage — Until He Made It Happen

“Thank you, Taeyong!”

NCT‘s Taeyong went viral after he and a special rap unit of SM Entertainment artists performed “ZOO” at SMTOWN LIVE 2022: SMCU EXPRESS@KWANGYA, the free online concert held by SM Entertainment and its artists on January 1. Fans took to Twitter after the concert to thank Taeyong for the performance, as it turns out that he had choreographed it himself.

Now, fans are thanking Taeyong once again after he revealed during a fan call that there had originally been no plans for a performance of “ZOO,” but that he had taken the initiative to organize one himself, leading #thankyoutaeyong to trend once again.

| /Twitter

During the call, Taeyong shared that he felt like it was a shame that the company had not made any plans to stage “ZOO.” So, despite his inexperience and lack of time, he took it upon himself to create a stage.

I’m sure you guys might know this already. “ZOO” is a song that was recorded for the SMTOWN album, but I thought it was a bit wasteful—there didn’t seem to be a chance for it to be performed on stage, but to only include it in the album seemed so wasteful. Even though it was really busy back then, and I’m not that experienced, I said I would try to make a stage performance for it, and that’s how I came to make the performance for “ZOO.”

—Taeyong

Taeyong has consistently proven himself as an artist, and the spectacular success he’s had as a choreographer on “ZOO” (alongside dancer Bada Lee) proves that he really is a talented all-rounder. In fact, “ZOO” even inspired its own dance challenge!

Fans have pointed out before that “ZOO” ended up being the highlight of SMTOWN Live 2022, and they’ve made sure to let Taeyong know it. After all, if he hadn’t pushed for this then we wouldn’t gotten to see Taeyong, NCT’s JenoHendery, and YangYang, and aespa‘s Giselle perform together!

You can watch Taeyong’s now iconic choreography video with Bada Lee on his Instagram post below.

NCT