On a Friday afternoon in Korea Town, a group of elderly women gather at the local community center.

They're excited for dance class.

They're dancing to a genre of music called trot. It's been popular in Korea since the 1940s, but there's been a recent surge in trot concerts and shows in Southern California.

And the biggest trot fans of all are Koreans in their golden ears.

I'm Gustavo Ariano.

You're listening to The Times, essential news from the LA Times.

It's Friday, April 21st, 2023.

Today, how Korean elders have forged a community around Trot and why you should get in on this trend.

Here to talk to me about all this is L.A. Times, Asian Americans communities reporter,

John Park. John, welcome the Times.

Thank you so much.

So, Zhang, at the senior center in Korea Town, what was the vibe like there? There's a big ballroom where you had 30-40 elders lining up and waving their arms,

dressing their hips, just dancing to this really upbeat music that was playing with the loudspeaker.

I mean, it was quite something to see.

And we had a dance teacher who was on the front of the stage, and she was basically the DJ.

She played the remix, more upbeat remixes of the trust music on her computer

that was played over the lap speaker. And she told me that, you know, she wanted to make this

upbeat because some of the songs are a little bit sadder, a little bit downbeat, and she obviously

wants her students to dance to those songs. One, two, chanc, chanc, chag.

She found some of the choreography from YouTube,

and she was instructing her students to do those dance.

Yeah, it's really cool to see the aunties and uncles do their Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger, you know.

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