Hyoyeon

Girls' Generation's main dancer, and the trainee SM insiders were talking about long before debut. These days she tours clubs and festivals around the world as DJ HYO.

Born Kim Hyo-yeon in Incheon in 1989, she joined SM Entertainment in 2000, around age ten, and spent nearly seven years as a trainee. The label choice basically came down to her parents' fandoms: her dad was a Park Jin-young fan and wanted her at JYP, but her mom loved H.O.T., and that connection landed first. She'd been in dance school since elementary, studying hip-hop, jazz and Latin, and SM went as far as having a legendary American popping dancer coach her. In middle school she spent about a year at a school in China, so she can still hold her own in everyday Mandarin.

The trainee stories are the good stuff. Super Junior's Eunhyuk has said that out of roughly 100 trainees, Hyoyeon was the one who stood out, and he'd go find her to learn moves. She was the only girl dancing in the boys' class and just assumed she'd debut solo. In 2005 she danced as BoA's silhouette double behind a sheer screen for a special Girls On Top stage, and most of the audience thought they were watching BoA herself. Hyoyeon counts it as her first real stage.

Her 2007 debut came with a solo dance break in Into the New World. The catch: early Girls' Generation was all sweet and pastel, which wasn't her dance language. She later admitted that during Kissing You, holding a lollipop through cutesy choreo, she wondered what all those years of training had been for. Things shifted once Gee made them the nation's girl group and Genie pushed the performances harder. On Genie stages she'd shuffle sideways to hit her mark, fans turned it into the meme hyo-kkeum hyo-kkeum, and a flood of Hyo pun nicknames followed. By The Boys, I GOT A BOY and Mr.Mr., the center of the dance break was basically her spot. Fans call her the Dancing Queen, and the national mother of popping.

She's proved it outside idol stages too. In 2012 SM built a project unit out of each group's top dancers, and she was the only woman next to Taemin, Kai and Eunhyuk on MAXSTEP. That same year she took ballroom, a completely different world, all the way to the final of MBC's Dancing with the Stars 2 and finished runner-up after tying on judges' scores. The behind-the-scenes is adorable: her members drafted their families' phones to text-vote but added hearts and notes like judges, please be nice, so a big chunk of the votes got tossed. In 2016, on Mnet's Hit the Stage, she teamed with pro dancers and became the first female contestant to win an episode. Taemin's review: she dances better than most professionals.

Her variety persona took a beat longer to land. After joining Invincible Youth 2 in 2011, her zero-filter delivery became the whole charm, and her habit of mangling names earned her the title space genius naming office. Host Jun Hyun-moo became actor Lim Chae-moo, and Brian McKnight became Brian McMorning. When the group went on Knowing Bros, she was usually the one roasting everybody. There's a glow-up arc too. Early on her strong features drew cruel comments, but after her mom suggested lowering her brow arch, the straight brows plus blonde hair reset her whole image. Blonde became so much her signature that going back to layered black hair in 2026 made headlines by itself. Actor Lee Jong-suk named her his closest friend in the industry back in 2012.

The real pivot was DJing. She went solo in 2016 with the SM STATION track Mystery, then from Sober in 2018 started releasing EDM as HYO and went all in behind the decks. In 2019 she played Amsterdam Dance Event and Ministry of Sound in London, and since a 2023 North America run she's done a US summer tour almost every year, with the Singapore F1 Grand Prix booked for fall 2026. In 2021 she said her life goal had switched from perfect wife and mom to world star DJ.

She's also a serial sub-unit member. In 2018 she joined Taeyeon, Sunny, Yuri and YoonA in Girls' Generation-Oh!GG. In 2022 came GOT the beat, SM's all-star women's performance team with BoA, Taeyeon, Seulgi, Wendy, KARINA and WINTER, on Step Back. And in 2026 she formed Girls' Generation-HRS with Yuri and Sooyoung, taking leader and main vocal for the first time. On her own channel, Hyo's Level Up, she treats junior idols to dinner, and the consensus is she's the easiest sunbae to talk to.