Jewelry Reunites on Stage After 20 Years: 'How Could I Not Cry?'

The girl group Jewelry, which heated up the music industry in the early 2000s, returns to the stage under a single name after a 20-year gap. Park Jung-ah, Lee Ji-hyun, Seo In-young, and Jo Min-ah broke their long hiatus to summon memories of their heyday by performing a series of hit songs. After the performance, Seo In-young could not hide her overwhelming emotions, even joking, “Is it menopause? I'm crying again.”

The 773rd episode of KBS 2TV’s 'Immortal Songs', broadcasting on the 12th at 6:05 PM, is organized as the first part of the '2026 NEW WAVE Festival in Ulsan'. This special event, held at the Taehwa River National Garden in Ulsan with approximately 10,000 spectators, features performers such as Lee Seung-gi, Forestella, Lee Chan-won, Dahyoung, Click-B, and Jewelry.

The biggest topic of conversation is undoubtedly Jewelry. Park Jung-ah, Lee Ji-hyun, Seo In-young, and Jo Min-ah took the stage once again under the name Jewelry after 20 years, performing their signature hits including ‘One More Time’, ‘I Like You So Much’, ‘Tonight’, and ‘Super Star’. They even recreated the iconic ET dance and 'shaking dance' that symbolized the music industry at the time, stimulating the collective memory of the audience.

The reason their reunion is perceived as even more special is that Jewelry did not start with this current member configuration. Jewelry debuted in 2001 with Park Jung-ah, Lee Ji-hyun, Jeong Yu-jin, and Jeon Eun-mi, and underwent several member changes. Later, Seo In-young and Jo Min-ah joined to build the group's golden era. After Lee Ji-hyun and Jo Min-ah left the team in 2006, members like Kim Eun-jung and Ha Ju-yeon joined, meaning the lineup changed according to the era. In 2011, Park Jung-ah and Seo In-young left, and after passing through various member combinations, Jewelry officially disbanded in 2015.

Therefore, it is difficult to describe this stage simply as a 'reunion of original members'. The significance lies in the fact that members who collectively created Jewelry's heyday at different times gathered in one place to compress the various eras of the team into a single stage.

In particular, there is a unique narrative regarding the reunion of Seo In-young and Jo Min-ah. The two have drawn fan attention due to public reports that their relationship had become distant. A discord rumor surfaced following Jo Min-ah's absence from Seo In-young's wedding in 2023, during which Jo Min-ah expressed her feelings regarding the invitation. Later, Seo In-young also shared her apologies for not being able to stay in touch.

The fact that these two met again this year under the name Jewelry was particularly special to fans. On Seo In-young's YouTube channel, 'Reform Seo In-young', released last June, the members of Jewelry performed a full group stage for the first time in about 20 years. Jo Min-ah confessed honestly that she had tried not to think about the members consciously, but tearfully admitted, “I missed you.”

This stage on 'Immortal Songs' is meaningful in that it expanded those feelings of reunion to a more official stage, a terrestrial music program. Regardless of what their past relationship was like, the four of them breathed as one team on stage, reaffirming the historical significance inherent in the name Jewelry itself.

Of course, the passage of time has caught up with the members. While preparing for this stage, Jewelry confessed, “It was difficult to dance in heels like before. Once I turned around, my mind went blank.” They thought their bodies would automatically remember the choreography as they did during their heyday, but they admitted that the long hiatus was not easy during the actual preparation process.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere changed the moment they stepped on stage. As the cheerful rhythm of ‘I Like You So Much’, the intense performance of ‘Super Star’, and the addictive choreography of ‘One More Time’ followed, the Ulsan audience responded in a way that evoked memories of Jewelry's past performances. In particular, the reappearance of their signature ET dance and shaking dance made the stage feel like a journey through time for the generation that remembers 2000s music programs.

The emotional wave was even greater for Seo In-young. After singing again with members who had lived their own lives for a long time, she expressed her emotional state, saying, “Is it menopause? I'm crying again.” Though said as a joke, it contained a different kind of emotion than mere regret that the stage had ended. It was a realization of time, coming from the fact that the people who shared her youth and heyday were gathered before her eyes again.

A collaboration symbolizing the generational shift is another highlight of this special. Seo In-young will perform her representative song ‘Cinderella’ with her junior artist Dahyoung. Dahyoung revealed that she had viewed Seo In-young as a role model and a star since her childhood, and she incorporated her fan heart for her senior into the stage by recreating the clothing and high-heel style Seo In-young showed back then.

There is a meaning here beyond a simple intergenerational collaboration. It shows on a single stage how the idol culture of the era when Seo In-young was active is being inherited by junior singers today. If Jewelry is a legacy of the past, Dahyoung belongs to the new generation that consumes and reinterprets that legacy in the current K-pop industry.

Jewelry's case is also connected to the 'retro' trend that is repeatedly occurring in the recent popular music scene. Listening to past hit songs again and having the protagonists of that time directly take the stage to sing are entirely different experiences. The former merely reproduces a memory, whereas the latter possesses a much stronger sense of temporality in that the actual participants of that memory call forth the past with their current bodies and voices.

In the 2000s, Jewelry was also a team that expanded the image of female idols. The cheerful popularity of ‘I Like You So Much’, the confidence of ‘Super Star’, and the sophisticated performance of ‘One More Time’ coincided with the process where girl group music moved away from being purely innocent to constructing more diverse female images. In particular, Seo In-young built her own independent stardom after Jewelry through her intense style and direct character.

In that sense, it is also worth noting that this stage does not end as a simple exercise in nostalgia. Rather than trying to replicate their past selves exactly, the members sing the songs of the past as their current selves. It is a way of standing on stage embracing the passage of time rather than trying to erase it.

It has been over 10 years since Jewelry officially disbanded in 2015, and nearly 20 years have passed since the members of their heyday stood on stage together. In the meantime, the members' lives have changed significantly. While they have walked different paths, active in various fields such as acting, broadcasting, and business, they were able to return to a single name in front of the common memory called music.

Ultimately, the most impressive thing about this 'Immortal Songs' stage is not the perfectly restored past. Rather, it is the current Jewelry—who find it hard to dance like before, whose choreography doesn't come to mind immediately, and who cry after the stage ends. Because they did not erase the 20 years but embraced them as they are, their reunion creates a deeper resonance.

Jewelry's full group stage goes beyond the dimension of a past popular group reappearing; it is closer to a scene where people who passed through an era together meet again after time has passed and turn the songs of those days into the present tense. And Seo In-young's tears are a symbolic indication that the stage was not just a broadcast event, but a moment for the members to reaffirm the time they have passed through.