aepsa under controversy for lip syncing + Winter sparks criticism for lazy dancing at a university festival 

aepsa’s performance at Korea University’s festival was deemed a disappointment. 

Now that the pandemic restrictions have been lifted, in-person music festivals at Korean universities are taking place again. Recently, aespa made headlines for their appearance at the festival of Korea University. However, besides gaining compliments for pretty visuals, the group also came under controversy for their underwhelming performances of smash hits including Black Mamba, Next Level, Savage, and Dreams Come True. 

The biggest reason why aespa’s performance was deemed disappointing is that the group was clearly not singing live. Singing live is supposed to be a must at music festivals but aespa once again lip-synced their entire performance. This has been a consistent problem with aespa and caused them to receive criticism multiple times. Many fans and netizens find it confusing because aespa has proved themselves to be a strong group vocally, but since their debut, they have rarely sung live. 

Besides lip-syncing, aespa also drew negative comments for their lacking stage presence and sloppy dancing. In particular, Winter became the most criticized member as she was accused of dancing lazily and making choreography mistakes on stage. Netizens say since aespa was already lip-syncing, the least they could do was give all their energy to dancing, but they failed to do that as well. 

Some comments from Korean netizens:

• Why does Winter’s dancing look so lazy? 
• I really enjoy aespa’s music. But their performances are severe. The university paid them a lot to perform, yet they were lip syncing and dancing sloppily…
• They couldn’t even do the dance correctly and had no energy either, especially Winter. My bias in aespa was Winter but I was shocked and disappointed when I watched her fancam. 
• Why bother to attend if they were going to lip sync? Wouldn’t it be better to stay at home and rest?
• Isn’t Winter aespa’s lead dancer? Why does she always look like she doesn’t want to perform? 
• If they have to lip sync, at least do it properly. 
• aespa’s performance is so dry and boring. I get that they debuted during the pandemic so they lack performing experience but how will they improve if they just lip sync all the time? 

Source: K14