Dance Life

The bright lights of MSG, not to mention the celebs in the crowd, can be intimidating for any performer, but first-year dancer Jen relished the role of pumping up the fans in the World’s Most Famous Arena.

What was the audition process to make the team?
They had an open call audition at the Garden, and I think 500 girls showed up, and there were a couple of cuts, and once you made it to the finals you competed against the returning members of the team.

How intimidating was that to be up against not only all the other girls, but the current members of the team, as well?
I was so nervous. It was actually my first dance audition I’d ever gone on. I danced in college...last year I went to the University of Pittsburgh [Ed note: Jen currently attends Pace University in Manhattan], but I didn’t really have to audition there, it was actually just a one-on-one audition because I had missed the tryouts.

When did you begin dancing?
I started dancing when I was two. I feel like every mom puts their daughter in dancing school at two, but I just loved it. When I was younger I started in ballet, tap, jazz and acro, and as I got older I added hip-hop and modern. But jazz, hip-hop and acro were always my favorite and that’s mostly what we do with the Knicks City Dancers.

Were there any particular moments that stood out from the season?
Probably when we played the Lakers and Kobe scored 61 points. That was a big game.

Could you feel a different kind of energy in the arena that night?
Yeah, the crowd was crazy. They went wild, but not for us, for Kobe. [laughs]

The Knicks, along with the Lakers, probably have the most celebrities sitting courtside. Have you ever been star struck?
We actually got to meet Will Ferrell and that was the coolest thing because who doesn’t love Will Ferrell? That was a lot of fun.

On an average game night, how many performances do you do?
We usually perform three different dance routines, but we’ll actually go onto the court about seven times. We go out for pregame—a lot of times we did this light-suit show that was really cool, the crowd really liked that—and we go out for T-shirt tosses during timeouts and then we do our performances throughout too.

Do you think Mike D’Antoni’s fast-paced, more offensive-orientated system suits the team better?
I definitely think that his high-paced offense has worked out well. I still think that the team is adjusting to it, but Chris Duhon and Nate Robinson, they’re really great at running the ball down the court, and the crowd gets really into it. The game’s so much more fast-paced and exciting, so it’s a lot of fun for all of us to watch.

From the May/June, 2009 issue