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SALT LAKE CITY — "Please don't turn this into a cheerleader move, or I'll cry."
Kristi Crader yells this as she demonstrates a dance step on a stage in front of roughly 85 hopefuls, women who all want to be one of the 18-20 "America First Jazz Dancers" to perform at Jazz games next season. Crader is one of the main choreographers in charge of this year's squad, and her first item of business is teaching the dancers their tryout routine, taking about two hours to teach them each count of the routine that contains hundreds of moves.
It's no accident Crader's here: Jazz executives wanted a change in the Jazz Dancers this year. "The program has been the same for 30 years, basically," Jazz director of game operations Carly Robbins explains. "We just wanted to do something different to change things up."
Crader's a veteran of the business. She's worked on commercials, music videos and movies like "Stomp The Yard" and "Step Up 2: The Streets." Her routines are also all over television, from "So You Think You Can Dance" to the American Music Awards. She's originally from Salt Lake City, though she spends most of her time in Los Angeles with her work.
So in comes a "fresh, new hip-hop style," led by Crader and fellow choreographer Roger "Ro" Malaga. For the last 21 years, Bountiful's Jan Whittaker designed the choreography for the Jazz Dancers program, but now a rotating group of hip-hop and mainstream creators will lead the way.
"Before, they've done more highly technical pieces," explains Crader. "This year they're going to do a little bit of a 180 and just switch it up."
So what changes? Well, essentially, expect more crowd-pleasing tricks, like kicks, spins, flips and somersaults. There will be more popping and locking. Add in more movement and expression, something that should be more interesting for the thousands in the upper bowl, too. Think, basically, of the kind of dancing you've seen in TV and movies in the last 10 years.
"The majority of NBA teams were already doing that, and the Jazz were one of the last teams that were strictly technical dances," Crader says. "I'm excited for them to switch up their style."
Tryouts for the dancers began Saturday, and continue through several rounds of cuts and interviews through Thursday. Regardless of the subject, tryouts for anything are always a miniature human drama, and Saturday's initial session was no exception. The women all clearly love to dance, but they're also all nervous during their routines, trying to keep up with the new things they're learning while impressing the judges, who take notes while they learn the routines, not just during the auditions themselves.
One dancer suffers a knee injury while practicing a trick and is helped off the floor, crying. She's just recovered from an ACL injury on her other knee, and fears she's just suffered the same injury again. Through it all, the dancers are asked to "be authentic," a piece of advice they clearly struggle to adopt. Mostly, they're authentically trying to learn this very difficult dance routine so they can avoid embarrassing themselves in front of the judges.
Even for the experienced potential dancers, the changes are exciting, but a little bit daunting.
"It's always difficult doing new things, but as long as I hit it with confidence, it'll be fine," says tryout participant Alex Zinov. Zinov was a dancer last season for the Jazz. "Fake it till you make it, right?"
"The songs are going to get updated, the dancers are going to get updated, the dance style is going to get updated," Crader says. "You know what? Change is good. Change is really good."
The 2016-17 Jazz Dancers will be announced by 5 p.m. Thursday.
