Sandara Park

Sandara Park
Dara at Press Conference in Singapore for New Evolution World Tour in November 2012
Background information
Also known as	Dara
Born	(1984-11-12) November 12, 1984 Busan, South Korea
Genres	K-pop, hip hop, R&B, pop, electropop, dance-pop
Occupations	Singer, actress, dancer, model 2NE1's director of communications[1]
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	2004–present
Labels	YG Entertainment
Associated acts	2NE1, Thunder

Sandara Park (Korean: 박산다라; born November 12, 1984), better known as Dara (Korean: 다라), is a South Korean idol singer, actress, dancer and model. She is best known as being a member and the director of communications of the South Korean girl group 2NE1.^[1][2] However, she first gained major popularity on ABS-CBN's Star Circle Quest during her stay in the Philippines. Her younger brother, Park Sang-Hyun, better known as Cheondung, is a member of boy band MBLAQ under J. Tune Entertainment, a subsidiary of JYP Entertainment.^[3]

Dara released her first digital single "Kiss" in 2009 and it was included as the 9th track in 2NE1's first studio album To Anyone in 2010.

Biography

Early life and career

Park was born in Busan, South Korea. When she was 10 years old, her family moved to the Alabang Muntinlupa City Philippines to start a trading business.^[4][5]

In 2004, during one of her school activities, she met Pauleen Luna, a former talent of ABS-CBN Corporation Channel 2's Talent Center. Luna encouraged Park to audition for Star Circle Quest, a reality-based talent search television program.^[6] Over the course of the season, she escaped elimination several times, and reached the final ten contestants.^[6] Her Korean ethnicity resulted in some trouble with the daily exercises set by the panel of Filipino judges. During the last elimination round (in which only five people advanced), Park received approximately half a million text votes. She eventually finished in second place behind Hero Angeles.^[7]

Park joined ABS-CBN's entertainment stable called Star Magic in the wake of her success in the show, with her projects ranging from commercial endorsements to television appearances. She starred in her first movie Bcuz Of U (2004), a three-story movie.^[8] She acted alongside Hero Angeles, and Filipino actors Kristine Hermosa and Heart Evangelista. Park won "Best New Actress", her first acting award, in the 21st Philippine Movie Press Club Star Awards.^[9] Park and Angeles launched their first solo movie, Can This Be Love (2005) which reportedly grossed almost 100 million pesos.^[9][10] Park was also nominated for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Musical or Comedy)" at the 2006 Golden Screen Awards.^[11] Her third movie in the country was D' Lucky Ones (2006) wherein she was paired with co-SCQ alumnus, Joseph Bitangcol due to Angeles' decision to retire from show business.^[9][12] In the same year, her fourth and last movie Super Noypi was shown in Christmas 2006 and was an official entry into the 32nd Metro Manila Film Festival.^[13] The success of Park in the Philippines lead her to star in a drama series. One was Krystala, a fantasy series with Judy Ann Santos.^[14] She also acted in various series Crazy For You (2006) and Abt Ur Luv (2006) and television specials My Name is Sandara Park (2004), SCQ Reload: OK Ako! (2004) and Nuts Entertainment (2006) of GMA Network.

Park also embarked on a musical career that led to the release of her self-titled six-track album that contained the novelty dance hit "In or Out", a song that parodied her experiences on Star Circle Quest.^[15]

In December 2004, YG Entertainment's Yang Hyun Suk offered Park workshop classes in South Korea after seeing the ABS-CBN Documentary My Name Is Sandara Park.^{[citation needed]} In March 2005, Park went ahead with the workshops, putting her career in the Philippines on hold. After six months, she resumed work in the Philippines, starring in several movies. She left the Philippines show business industry and returned to South Korea with her family on August 1, 2007.^[16] YG Entertainment announced the following day that Park had signed a contract with them.^[17]

2NE1

YG Entertainment announced that the new group would consist of four members and debut sometime in May 2009.^[18] The company stated that the group had trained for four years, and that their debut album would contain songs produced by 1TYM's leader, Teddy Park and G-Dragon of Big Bang.^[18][19][20] The group's name was initially announced as "21"; however, due to the discovery of a singer with the same name, the group was renamed "2NE1", which "NE" is the abbreviation of "New Evolution". Sandara was placed in 2NE1, alongside Bom, Minzy and CL.^[21]

The group collaborated with label-mate senior Big Bang for the song "Lollipop". The song gained immediate success, but questions were still raised as to whether the group could survive on its own.

2NE1 debuted in SBS's The Music Trend on May 17, 2009 where they performed their digital single "Fire" produced by Teddy Park of 1TYM. With the release of their self-titled mini-album, the group started the promotions of their title track "I Don’t Care". Their mini album hit the no. 3 spot at the Hanteo's "Best-selling Album of 2009" with over 100,000 copies sold.

After a short hiatus, the group released a surprise single "Follow Me"^[22] that took number one for the week of February 13.^[23] The single was used as a theme song for Samsung Corby Folder.^[24]

In October of the same year, 2NE1 returned with their first full-length debut studio album To Anyone,^[25] which was released on September 9, 2010. Promotions started with the simultaneous showcase of the three title tracks of the album, "Clap Your Hands", "Go Away" and "Can't Nobody". Following those promotions, another song "It Hurts (Slow)"^[26][27] was released on October 31 for Halloween. The album garnered huge success and 2NE1 won an overall 11 times on various music shows from their promotions.^[28] The album went on to sell over 150,000 copies.

Solo activities

Before her debut, she was featured in a TV drama The Return of Iljimae as Rie, and she also appeared as the lead actress in Gummy's music video for "I'm Sorry", together with labelmate T.O.P, one of the members of Big Bang.

In August 2009, Park was featured on G-Dragon's solo album Heartbreaker, with their song entitled "Hello". They performed together a couple of times on music events, shows, and also during G-Dragon's two-day solo concert entitled Shine A Light in December 2009.

On September 7, 2009, Park was the first among the members of 2NE1 to release a digital single. Entitled "Kiss", the song was produced by Teddy Park and was featured in Park's first commercial for Oriental Brewery's Cass Beer series alongside K-Drama actor Lee Min Ho. The song also featured fellow member CL as a rapper and peaked at #5 on the Gaon Chart.

In July 2010, Park was featured as the female lead in Taeyang's "I Need A Girl" music video. Two versions were made for the music video.

In April 18, 2011, Park announced that she has been officially promoted to the Communications Director of 2NE1. In order to officialize her promotion, YG Entertainment gave Park her own Certificate of Appointment.^[1]

Park was selected to become the Etude House's endorsement model for 2012, along with SHINee. Previously, Dara has already been working as an endorsement model for the cosmetic brand. The two would participate in the "Kiss Note" campaign, and would film a series of dramatic CFs (commercial films) together.

On June 27, 2012, Park's Philippine Movies were shown in Korea. The films "Bcuz of U", "The Lucky Ones", and "Can This Be Love" were shown on the said date on Korea's Home Choice and SK Broadband.

In February 2013, Park was selected to become CLIO's endorsement model and subsequently, became their new endorsement model.^[29]

Discography

Extended plays

Singles

Featured singles

Filmography

Films

• 2004: Volta (cameo)
• 2004: Bcuz of U
• 2005: Can This Be Love
• 2006: D' Lucky Ones
• 2007: Super Noypi
• 2009: Girlfriends (Korean: 걸프렌즈) (cameo)

Television

Music video appearances

• 2008: "I'm Sorry" (Gummy feat. T.O.P)
• 2010: "I Need A Girl" (Taeyang feat. G-Dragon)

Awards

References

External links

• 2NE1 official site
• Sandara Park on Me2day
• Sandara Park on Twitter
• Sandara Park at the Internet Movie Database