DANZ QUARTERLY No 4 June 2006

So You Think You Can Dance?
Meet Winner Anita Hutchins

By Francesca Horsley

Anita Hutchins was slightly out of breath answering the phone. She was busy in the studio choreographing. The winner of the hugely successful So You Think You Can Dance? TV3 show is not one to let the grass grow under her feet; she was preparing material for a dance class video.

Entitled Move It, she hopes to have it on the market this month. A mix of contemporary and “fun-type” dancing, it is aimed at people wanting to dance. “Over the years, people in their 20s and 30s have mentioned to me that they would love to learn how to dance again,” she says. “I am focusing on this right now because I want to get it out quickly while people still know my name.”

She is managing to fit this in while organising applications for a visa and green card before she can take up her prize. Plans include two weeks in Los Angeles, including a day’s masterclass with renowned music video choreographer Brian Freeman, and other dance classes.

“I will meet people and network and taste what goes on over there.” The fine details of the other part of the prize, being placed on the books of major talent agency, Bloc, are still being worked out.

“Winning was a huge opportunity; it was gigantic. Dance in LA is so different to what we do over here and what I have done in Europe. There are heaps of stage shows, film, TV work and music videos. I can probably make a real living out of my dancing again – which will be awesome. I am sure they train differently; I will learn so much.”

Anita says the show was a huge challenge and changing from one genre to the next proved very demanding. Contestants had to learn a specific range of steps and a routine for each performance. Dance teachers would work with the dancers so they could understand the style but it was only a sketchy understanding. “We always learnt different pieces of choreography, so we didn’t really end up learning the style.”

“We didn’t have much time between shows; mostly only three or four days. Within that time you would have to learn the steps for the dance, then the character and how to perform it – which is a pretty fast turnaround; you had to put yourself 100% into it to do it - which was quite a good experience because you couldn’t procrastinate. It was very intense.”

Changing shoes was also tough. “We were dancing between high heels and bare feet so we were really jumping between shoes all the time. It’s just so different working in high heels – I was in pointe shoes as well – then bare feet, then in sneakers – I think that was the hardest thing, we all had sore calves. Although the guys changed from tap shoes to sneakers to ballroom shoes it didn’t affect the height of the heel.”

Anita’s CV makes impressive reading for a 24 year old – highlights include a 1998 scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dance, London; on graduation, three seasons with Bayerisches Staatsballett Munchen; then a season with Nederland Dans Theater 2 in The Hague.

On returning to NZ in 2004, she co-directed the show Eye Candy for last year’s Wellington Fringe Festival with Rebecca Jarvis, winning ‘Best Dance Show’. She followed this with a six month course with Avalon Film and Television School in Lower Hutt. She also danced for Michael Parmenter and workshopped for Douglas Wright.
However, all her training didn’t prepare her for tango, salsa or hip hop. “I had never done them before so learning the tricky footwork was hard. I remember the tango rehearsals were just ‘oh my gosh what the hell is going on’ – it was such complicated footwork, we were lost.”

The intensity of rehearsals and the nine performances wasvery tiring. Contestants barely registered that they were appearing on stage. “We got pretty used to being in front of the audience. I think we were all quite fatigued by that stage; we didn’t really think too hard about the fact that we had all these people watching, we just focussed on doing our dance.”

While she is keen to absorb as much as she can from her American experience she has no plans to stay away forever. “I very much love NZ – when I came home I was so happy. I love it here and I have got so many friends and my family. It will be cool to come back home again and just do my thing further here – I’d like to choreograph more and teach.” One of her current projects – a dance theatre performance piece Ella and Will - has to take a back seat, but she intends to workshop it bit by bit, and stage it when she returns.

“Heaps of things interest me - so I am going away for the experience and then I‘ll come back and keep doing my thing here.”

...and Dunedin Dancer Amber McIntosh

By Catherine Pattison

Wearing track pants, with a cropped top exposing a toned stomach, her golden curls flying every which way, Amber McIntosh could be a fitness magazine pin-up girl.

Punctuated, precise movements and hands hammering the air to the loud hip hop track, her smile is huge throughout a recent performance with the Dunedin Casino Dance Squad. At face value she is bubbly, enthusiastic and engaging, but this down south dancer is more than a glorified cheerleader.

At 22, she has a Bachelor of Physical Education degree, is halfway through a Post-Graduate Diploma of Teaching, runs her own dance school Xtend and made it through to the final 12 of the recent television programme So You Think You Can Dance.

Finding time to interview Amber is like trying to coordinate three different people’s schedules but when we finally sit down to chat, it is just the one petite person filling the myriad of roles.

She teaches hip hop five times a week and performs in and co-manages the 18-member, 15-performance-a-season Dunedin Casino Dance Squad - all on top of completing a six-week secondary school teaching placement.

Thirteen years of ballet, eight of jazz, aerobics and dance competitions in a hip hop group, Ma’alahi, form her technical background. But it was choosing to stay in her hometown that fostered a mindset that focused on overcoming a sense of “isolation” being located so far from the main dance centres.

“The thing about Dunedin, and it’s a good thing, you have to create your own opportunities.”
Auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance in Christchurch presented itself as a way to test herself “to the full” Amber says.

She was one of five chosen from 80 South Islanders and after progressing through the Wellington auditions, a television appearance became imminent.

“It was at that moment I thought, ‘wow’, I might really have a shot here.” A self-confessed “natural” in the camera’s eye, she says neither being filmed nor the programme’s competitive aspect fazed her. “Everyone bound together so easily, I think it’s because we had dance as a passion.”

When the group whittled down to 16, Amber danced successfully through a jazz and waltz routine but something was amiss. A grade 2 hamstring injury, sustained in the first performance, left her hurting going into her third appearance, the rock’n’roll bid.

Despite thinking she and her partner were “pretty on to it,” the judges ruled differently. They ended up on “death row” and with the pressure mounting to top notch, she stepped onto the stage for the requisite one minute solo.

She had chosen a jazz routine over her specialty hip hop, hoping for a “fun” effect, but from the start, poise eluded her and continuing on So You Think You Can Dance slipped away. Amber was voted off the show.

“I got out there and I just – ohhhh - wasn’t mentally prepared. I did one mistake at the start and it just didn’t get much better from there.” Bowing out on a downer left her feeling flat. “I just let myself down a lot. I was really grateful to go that far and I would’ve been happy to go out on a good note but it was one of the worst dances I’ve ever done.”

Back in Dunedin however, the after effects of appearing on TV became apparent. People approached her, genuinely excited about dance; they were asking questions and her dance classes were boosted with youngsters wanting to emulate her hip hop foot moves.

Filling role model shoes is something she is inherently comfortable with and you can be sure Amber doesn’t only think she can dance – she has got the formula down pat. “You’ve just got to have a positive outlook, be very goal driven and believe in yourself.”

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