Wednesday, February 20, 2013

#002: Dominique Dinh



My 2nd profile is a name in the parapara community you have probably heard of. Dominique (a.k.a Dom on the forums) has worked over the past decade to build interest in parapara in North America with her parapara groups, TWO★HEARTS and Disco NRG. Now it is my honour to profile Dominqiue in a new post of the The EuroViewer!

1. Occupation?
About to graduate with a degree in Marketing. I'm about to leave for a month to work in Hong Kong!
 
2.  Where are you from?
Born and raised in Orange County, CA

3. Tell us how you got into the euro/parapara scene?
I got my first exposure to DDR/Eurobeat/ParaPara when my dad was working in Tokyo. During the times I stayed with him I was exposed to DDR at game centers and liked the music. I saw ganguro doing ParaPara in Shibuya and Harajuku at the time as well. I didn't get into ParaPara though until I went to visit my cousins in Toronto, Canada, in 2001. Pacific Mall had an arcade with a PPP 1st mix machine and it was love at first sight! 

4. Can you tell us the history behind Two Hearts and Disco NRG?
Jim and I met and became friends through the Bemaniac forums back in 2001 when we realized we lived close by and were almost the same age. We kept in contact since then, but TWOHEARTS was started in Spring 2005 because we wanted to create videos within a unit. Disco NRG was created in Winter 2005 with the same idea of releasing videos, but with more members we could release more videos and eventually add more members to the group.

5. I know you have traveled to Japan. What clubs did you go to?
If we were talking about club events, the list would be a mile long! If we're talking about physical clubs though: Roppongi velfarre (first club I went to), Roppongi Maharaja, Shinjuku CODE, Shibuya Camelot, Osaka NEO, Nagoya OZON, Iwaki Club Freeze, Chiba STARNITE, Chiba Revolution... the list goes on! Most of the ParaPara events actually take place inside restaurants or banquet halls (like STARFIRE).
 
6.  You have mentioned a rocky past with Avex especially when it came to the night of Velfarre. What led up the incident? What was your reaction then and now?
I wanted to help people overseas learn ParaPara, so I had YouTube accounts featuring videos and refilms. My major exposure to avex was when I was featured in a Gazen ParaPara!! shoot, which was filmed for karaoke videos. They must've recognized me from the shoot when they were going through YouTube because they specifically picked on me. I had informed DJ Boss that I was going to attend the event (we had become friends over that summer), but avex found out and velfarre staff e-mailed me and told me not to come. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I still tried to go and was denied upon entrance. They used my age as a technicality for not being able to get in; if you were in the scene back then you'd know they didn't care about ages. Most of the main avex dancers were around my age and were definitely underaged, but were still allowed in. 

Of course I wasn't too shocked when they took me out, but them actually admitting that the real reason they didn't let me in was because of my YouTube account infuriated me the most. I loved sharing ParaPara so much that I went to lows of actually posting videos WITHOUT audio to try to remedy the problem, but that obviously didn't work. Now I think avex is okay with allowing refilms to stay up since they don't make official videos anymore. It sucked that it had to happen the way it did, but I don't regret it because I just wanted to give access to ParaPara routines to everyone.

7. What are some of your favourite euro songs?
Too many to list, but some of my favorites: Fire On The Moon/Aleph, Gorky Park/Chester, You Are The One/Lou Lou Marina, Kingo King'O Beat/Fastway, Kelly/Powerful T.

8. What are some of your favourite hyper techno songs?
Again there's a lot to list, but some favorites: Countdown/Nuvo Riche, So What/Independence Days, Spaceman/Water Queen, Take Me Up/Encryptor, Wild Boy/DJ Zorro, Techno Rise/Dalinda

9. What are some of your favourite trance songs?
I never danced TraPara, but due to fond memories from 9LoveJ my favorites would be Zuma/Hypersonic, La Bomba/Eddy Wata, and Ass Up/Baracuda.

10.
Concerning SEB coming onto Facebook, do you feel them asking fans about international release will come to fruition?


They started releasing SEB on iTunes again, so I think that it is entirely possible. Avex offers some of their more popular artists on iTunes worldwide, so why not SEB in the future? I just wish it happened earlier while ParaPara/Eurobeat was still popular.

11.
How do you feel about the ongoing piracy conversation in the euro community? Thoughts?


I think there are valid points coming from all sides, those who support it and those who download it. Eurobeat in general is very expensive since it has a niche audience and for the most part only available in Japan. I think if avex allowed the labels to release their music more widely online it would cut down on the piracy, or just release it overseas through sites like Amazon or iTunes.

12. Physical albums or digital copies? Why? 
I am personally a fan of physical albums because I like seeing it on a shelf! However I know it's not practical for most people, so I would definitely pay a premium to own them.

13. How big is your musical collection?
I'm not exactly sure, but I would say at least around 400-600 CDs? I own almost all of the SEB between 40-200 with less than 20 of them missing, so that's almost 160 albums alone!

14. How many parapara routines do you know?
Last time I counted it was over 1000, but that was awhile ago. I have no idea at this point since I've forgotten old routines and learned newer ones.

15. What has been looping on your media player, recently?
SEB 221!

16. What is your guilty pleasure?
I'm a teenybopper! I love the Jonas Brothers, Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block, etc. You'll also find me breaking out into the Footloose soundtrack with my boyfriend very often.

17.
Anything you want the readers to know about yourself or the community at large?


I hope for a new generation of people who are equally as passionate as those in the past. Without the support of new people, the community won't continue on!

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