Jang Na-ra | |||||||
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Born |
Seoul, South Korea |
March 18, 1981 ||||||
Occupation |
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Years active | 1997–present | ||||||
Musical career | |||||||
Genres | Pop | ||||||
Instruments | Vocals | ||||||
Years active | 2001–present | ||||||
Labels |
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Website | www |
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Korean name | |||||||
Hangul | |||||||
Hanja | |||||||
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Transcriptions | |
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Revised Romanization | Jang Nara |
McCune–Reischauer | Chang Nara |
Jang Na-ra (Hangul: 장나라; born March 18, 1981) is a South Korean singer and actress active in the South Korean and Chinese entertainment industries. She is known for her hit song Sweet Dream and TV roles in New Nonstop, Successful Story of a Bright Girl, Bratty Princess, Baby Faced Beauty, School 2013, My Love Patzzi, Fated to Love You and I Remember You.
Jang spent most of her childhood in her birthplace, Yeokchon-dong Eunpyeong District in Seoul, South Korea. She appeared with her father, Ju Heo-seong who is also an actor, in a play Les Misérables, in her primary school days, thus sparking her interest to become an actress. Jang also went on to become an advertisement model for some television advertisements in her high school days before entering into the Department of Theater, the Faculty of Fine Arts major in Acting at Chung-Ang University in March 2000. She then graduated 10 years after on February 19, 2010. The delay is due to her continuous work since her debut after she entered the University. She also received an alumni association award for her contributions to the University during the graduation rites.
Jang made her debut in the entertainment world as a singer on May 2001. She started her singing career by becoming a trainee and signing a contract with SM Entertainment. However, SM Entertainment dropped her due to assumptions that she would have lesser or no popularity than the other competing artists. Despite SM management's opinion, Jang released her debut album First Story with the title track Burying My Face In Tears. Initially, it was not well received as it only reached number 12 in Korean music charts. After starring in the popular sitcom New Nonstop, she became more well known and released the other tracks in the album such as her pop ballad style song, Confession and the April Story, which all ranked at the top in various music charts. The album sold 300,000 copies in the process. Thus, this resulted in Jang holding an MC job at MBC's music show, Music Camp. Jang also served as an MC of the KBS talk show Love Story. By the end of 2001, she received several New Female Artist awards from year-end Music Awards ceremonies and New MC awards from Entertainment Awards ceremonies.