Q&a / What’s next for Katseye? The ‘global girl group’ on their Beautiful Chaos Tour and reclaiming their lives as 20-year-olds
In just a year, Megan Skiendiel, Daniela Avanzini, Sophia Laforteza, Lara Raj, Manon Bannerman and Yoonchae went from trainees to global pop stars
Almost every Katseye performance begins the same way. The bass notes of the girl group’s first single “Debut” echo through the venue, bright stage lights shine on its members and a screaming crowd nearly drowns out their vocals.
But roughly a week before heading out on their first official tour, their opening number was met with a few sparse claps.
Inside the Hollywood Palladium, the group – fresh-faced, high-spirited and decked out in their colour-coordinated stagewear – held their final dress rehearsal last month. It was both the first time they’d run the show on a stage and the last time they would practice before the sold-out Beautiful Chaos Tour.
Their final stop on the North American trek was in Los Angeles, where they played the YouTube Theater and the Palladium on December 12 and 13.
The group originated from a YouTube reality competition show called The Debut: Dream Academy in 2023. Taking influence from the K-pop training system, over 120,000 contestants competed for a spot in what would become Katseye. The show was presented by Hybe, the South Korean entertainment company behind acts like BTS and Le Sserafim, and Geffen, a label of Universal Music, which shared the goal of crafting a multicultural girl group. (Avanzini is Venezuelan-Cuban; Raj is Indian; Skiendiel is Chinese Singaporean; Laforteza is Filipina; Bannerman is Swiss-Ghanaian; and Jeung is Korean.)
Their on-screen journey was simultaneously captured through the Netflix docuseries, Popstar Academy: Katseye, which took viewers inside their intense training and evaluations.