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York Dance Teacher Competing for Spot on TV Dance ContestBy Amber Lester Kennedy Thursday, March 24, 2011 Jino Fort dances everywhere. He dances down hallways, on sidewalks, in the kitchen and in parking garages. In May, he’ll be dancing across a stage in Las Vegas, vying for the approval of a panel of judges on Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance.” But before he can be seen on TV, Fort can be spotted teaching hip hop dance classes at ArtInspired, LLC, a York County studio offering classes in all of the creative pursuits, from dance to photography to writing. For the past year, the 22-year-old has taught participants how to pop and lock through his choreographed routines, but ArtInspired co-founder Marilen Crump says many of the students just come to watch his unique dance style. “They come to watch him because he doesn’t move like a normal human being,” she says. “He adds a different quality to it and it’s very interesting to watch.” Crump met Fort about a year ago when he came dancing through the entrance of ArtInspired, LLC, hoping to teach. “He kind of comes dancing into places and right away, I knew it wasn’t an ordinary person,” she says. She was more amazed to learn he had only started dancing about a year before that. Fort, a Bethel High School graduate, was inspired to try dancing after watching a street dancer in Daytona Beach. He signed up for classes with Kodachrome, a dance workshop series that tours Virginia, but got its start in Tidewater. He learned the different types of hip hop dance – breakdancing, popping, old school – and is now focused on “dubstep,” which highlights a dancer’s ability to isolate movements. For example, Fort can move his hips while keeping his torso perfectly still, or shift his chest side to side without moving the rest of his body. While he lacks formal training, he has more than enough ambition and hunger to learn. He decided to audition for “So You Think You Can Dance” to see how far he could get. The show pairs dancers with professional choreographers to learn different genres, and the contestants are eliminated based on viewers’ votes and input from a panel of judges. By the end of the season, a successful contestant typically dances everything from contemporary lyrical dance to Broadway-style jazz to the Paso Doble. Contest hopefuls try out in major cities, demonstrating a solo of their choosing, then participating in a choreography round that shows if they can follow direction and work well with others. The successful contestants are given tickets to Las Vegas, where they endure more auditions and learn more choreography. Eventually, the talent pool is narrowed to a couple dozen contestants who enter the actual competition, filmed in Hollywood. Fort decided to do something unexpected by traveling to New York to audition. “He didn’t let anybody know he was going to New York to do it,” Crump says. “When he came back and said he made it, he said he wanted to make it in New York where he would compete against the top-caliber dancers. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself on TV if he wasn’t that good.” He describes the audition process as “ridiculous, very long and tiring,” saying the hardest part was keeping up the energy to dance in between the hours spent sitting and waiting. He was amazed when he made it through each round to eventually receive a ticket to Las Vegas. “I didn’t even think about getting to that point, which I think helped me,” he says, adding that just auditioning was his personal goal. In the weeks leading up to the show’s premiere on May 26, Fort is cramming to learn as much about other types of dance as possible. He says he’s started taking some of the other dance classes at ArtInspired, and for the first time, performed a swing number at “Dancing with the Williamsburg Stars” on March 5. He’s received crash courses in contemporary dance, the rumba, foxtrot and Mexican dance, while maintaining his focus on hip hop. But it won’t be his moves that get him past the next round; he says he plans to wow the judges with his personality. Ultimately, he hopes his appearance on the show will launch new opportunities. He envisions a future where he’ll teach at workshops, appear in music videos, choreograph and teach around the world. First stop: Las Vegas.
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in Ireland this year.