‘So You Think You Can Dance’ star Jeanine Mason on winning, touring, growing up

Season 6 of  the Fox reality show/dance competition “So You Think You Can Dance” (SYTYCD) is well underway, having launched shortly after the previous season concluded.  So all the friends we made over the summer - Brandon, Melissa, Kupono - may feel a bit distant right now. But the good news is that they’re paying us a visit.

On November 12, the SYTYCD Season 5 Tour comes to the San Diego Sports Arena to give us a fix of our favorite routines but with an  important difference — this time, it’s live.

Last season, viewers crowned 18-year-old Jeanine Mason the winner, pushing the underdog to victory.  Jeanine was by no means the favorite going into the final four (well, she was my favorite) and clearly was not on most radars at the start of the season.

By most accounts, her rise to the top was fast, last-minute, and unexpected (check out this article for my theories on how she clinched the title).  Steal the crown she did, inching past the competition with grace and determination, the way she out-danced Kayla in that brilliant head-to-head piece by Mia Michaels.

Now Jeanine’s on tour with the rest of the Top 10 finalists from the season. Slated for nearly 50 stops in just under three months, the tour takes them all over the U.S and Canada to stadiums filled with the same young fans who crammed the show’s live studio with homemade banners and incessant shrieking.

I chatted with Jeanine  when the group was in Texas and got the scoop on what she learned from her experience on the show, where she’s headed next, and what she really thinks about Russian Folk dancing.

First, though, I had to come clean about my enthusiasm for her as a contestant. I proudly pointed out that I had named her my favorite and predicted her win several weeks early.

Jeanine Mason: No way! You were one of the few that predicted that.  Not many people saw me coming.

Brian Schaefer: Did you even see that happening?

No, honestly, I really did not. I auditioned for the show hoping that I would make it through to Vegas, but really not thinking it was a possibility.  And then once I got to Vegas I thought, “Let me just make it through a couple of rounds so I can go home and be proud and say ‘Hey guys, I made it through samba and hip-hop and I made it through this.’”

I had just turned 18 so I thought this would be my little test to see how far I could get and what I need to work on.  So hopefully that would allow the show to be a possibility for me in the future.

But I never anticipated making it onto the show on my first try and never in a million years would I have seen myself as the winner.

Yet in the finals, Jeanine clearly dominated.  As a few of the judges put it, she peaked at just the right time.  And one of the key moments during the finals was her stunning solo, rose in mouth, and an unbelievable pirouette that very well might have been the deciding factor.

I was on that stage at the Kodak and every second of it felt like a dream to me, it didn’t seem like it was possible.  And that turn section, I had done it in the past a couple of times and every dancer knows that as much as you try to hold a turn section at the end, a lot of it relies on luck and I honestly was just hoping that it would happen.

So what did you learn about yourself in the process?  What do you feel like you know about yourself now that you didn’t know before?

Thank you for asking me that question.  A lot of people don’t realize how big of a deal this is to somebody… especially because I was straight out of high school and I had just graduated on May 29 and had moved out to start filming by June 1.  So it was this crazy transition. As much as I wanted to think I was an adult, I was still a child.

My mom just came out to New York to visit me for the New York show and I got to hang out with her.  She got home and called me and was crying and saying, ‘You know, Jeanine, you’ve grown up so much, I’m so proud of you’ and that to me was a true testament to what the show has done.

America doesn’t really get to see the growth that we make as people.  You really see the dancing growth, but for her, she realized exactly how much I had grown up. I’m so grateful to the show.  It’s prepared me in ways that I honestly will never be able to fully grasp, but I feel like a more confident person in myself and in my dancing and a more grateful person. It’s opened up my eyes to so many things.

You came on SYTYCD as a contemporary dancer.  What style of dance did you develop an interest in, or an appreciation for, during the show that you never really expected?

Well, there was no hip-hop girl, or b-girl [break dance] on the show this year. But every time anyone asked if there was a hip-hop girl, everyone looked at me because I got hip-hop what felt like three thousand times. [Note: each week the contestants picked from a hat which genre they would dance the following week.  Jeanine pulled hip-hop from the hat on a rather frequent basis.]

But I was so lucky to have Phillip [Chbeeb, her initial Top 20 partner.  Click here for my impassioned defense of him when he was kicked off.] I had always been kinda afraid of hip-hop but now I absolutely love it and a lot of it has to do with the fact that I was lucky enough to have Phillip because he is hip-hop, he’s legendary.

It’s definitely a tie between hip-hop and Latin ballroom.  I’m a Latina myself so I always used to admire and love it but dancing in heels was just something that frightened me.  Now we wear them every day for our show.  I’ve really fallen in love with ballroom.  It makes you feel sexy.

I think it’s great to [dance] contemporary style and the story-telling that comes with it, which I love, and then strap on some heels and just play around and be sexy [laughs].

What was a low point in the show for you?  Or moments that were awkward or times when you didn’t think you’d be able to push forward?

Well, definitely Russian Folk dancing was probably the scariest.  Drawing that [from the hat], my heart stopped.  I pulled out Russian folk dancing and I didn’t say a word and [Phillip] picked up the card from my hand and we were just like “No way!!!”  We were so angry.  But I think people really connected with us knowing that we had to go through that and now I’m really grateful for going through that with Phillip.

So what does your future in dance look like?  What do you want to accomplish as a dancer?  Where are you headed next?

I’m moving to LA, so I will be going to UCLA starting in January and taking [the] minimum work load so I still have time for auditioning because I do plan on always performing and that being my life. But I would love to have a degree on top of that. I’m looking to major in Communication.

I love being on the stage but being behind the camera on SYTYCD was honestly so cool to me.  So I would love to do some film. I think my ultimate goal would be to do a movie musical because it would morph everything I love into one project.

What are your favorite movie musicals?

Oh, so many.  I loved “Chicago,” “Moulin Rouge,” “Hairspray”…  Honestly, all of them!

Dance generally isn’t very visible in our culture.  We see a lot of movies, hear a lot of music, but dance isn’t a big part of pop culture.  Why do you think people are responding to this show in particular?  What are people learning from it?

Well, I think the main thing is that people really appreciate dance once they give it a try.  But it’s hard because that first step [of] “I’m going to just go see a ballet” isn’t very appealing.

I think what SYTYCD does that is so great is that it slowly brings it into people’s lives and it does that by attaching [dance] to people.  By that I mean that you’re watching the show and while you’re appreciating the dancing, you’re not even realizing how attached you’re becoming to the contestants and to their journey.

We meet people every day at the signings after the shows and on the street and they say “It’s so weird, I feel like I know you.”  And to us, you do know us, you’re just as much a part of this journey as our family was because you were there for every step, you were there every week and every challenge.

So the show just puts [dance] in a more personal [perspective].  Our hopes are that people eventually will be like “God, you know, I really enjoyed watching [SYTYCD]. I think I’m going to go see this Broadway show.”

And that to us is like we’re doing something bigger than just performing and fighting for our lives on a TV show.  We’re being advocates for dance and that’s the greatest thing we could ask for.

Brian Schaefer is an SDNN contributor.

Event info

What: So You Think You Can Dance Tour 2009

When: Thursday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m.

Where: San Diego Sports Arena, 3500 Sports Arena Blvd., San Diego

How much: $38.50 to $56.50

Contact: (800) 745-3000; ticketmaster.com

Multimedia: Watch a montage of Jeanine Mason’s solos from Season 5.

Tags: Brian Schaefer, Fox, Fox TV, interview Jeanine Mason, Jeanine Mason, Jeanine Mason interview, Mia Michaels, Phillip Chbeeb, reality show, San Diego Sports Arena, SDNN, Season Five Tour, So You Think You Can Dance, SYTYCD, Top 10 finalists, tour

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