When Aaron Cash was first announced as a judge on Series 4 of So You Think You Can Dance Australia, many younger members of the Australian dance scene, both students and teachers, scratched their heads and questioned his dance heritage and right to occupy that role in this new Australian series.
Cash had trained in Australia, and was a multi-skilled and classically trained dancer, singer and actor. But the bulk of his 25 year professional career had been spent in the United States.
Although he has worked with icons like Baryshnikov, Twyla Tharp and Cher, and more recently as co-choreographer of Cuba’s “Ballet Revolucion”, he has flown under the radar in Australia.
Fortunately, bringing him to the attention of SYTYCD’s audience has remedied that oversight and also means he can share the wealth of knowledge he has gleaned from all those incredible performance experiences.
His career serves as a great example of how rewarding and varied your professional opportunities can be when you are not afraid to challenge yourself or move yourself to where those challenges are available.
Cash began his dance training in Brisbane with Clarrissa Hill before winning a scholarship to study at [the late] Ross Coleman’s performing arts school, which moved him to Sydney and shaped the kind of dancer he would become.
Of that experience Cash says: “Ross Coleman was probably the greatest influence in my life, and I miss him every day. What George Balanchine did for American Ballet, Ross Coleman did for dance in this country.
It wasn’t just about the dance, it was about life. And life is to be lived – and you danced as you lived with great passion and hunger and curiosity. You always learned. You never stopped learning.”
Cash notes other Australian choreographers and dancers as inspirations who also fuelled his passion for the craft. “My influences were always people like Graeme Murphy, David Atkins, Paul Mercurio, Kim Walker, Stephen Heathcote and Danny Radojevic.
I could go on: Chris Sheppard, Kelley Abbey, Alana Scanlan, Tony Bartuccio – all these people – you took from everybody, and you look for inspiration everywhere.”
But as much as he relished the inspiration of these role models, here in Australia he also hungered for more, and to discover what the rest of the world offered. “I felt like I wanted to go to a bigger pool to find that – and to test myself against a larger majority.”
He continues: “You know, you put yourself with people (dancers) who are better than you and that is how you improve – because water always rises to its level.”
So he took himself off to study in LA. One of his first breaks came courtesy of the renowned American choreographer, Kenny Ortega (who choreographed Michael Jackson’s This Is It, Dirty Dancing, and the first three series of High School Musical, among many others).
Ortega cast Cash as one of the lead dancers in Cher’s “Love Hurts” Tour, which kept him occupied for 10 years, touring the world. During this time his talent also drew the attention of other industry icons such as Twyla Tharp, who handpicked him to become her personal pas de deux partner, and Baryshnikov, who included him in his world tour.
He was also one of the original Tap Dogs when the show premiered back in 1995, and has featured in films including Titanic, Hook and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as well as the dance documentary, Move – the film, which also involved his SYTYCD co-judge, Paula Abdul.
More recently, Cash has been choreographing for “Ballet Revolucion”, the dynamic fusion of ballet, contemporary and modern hip-hop which features elite dancers from Cuba’s premier dance companies Ballet Nacional de Cuba and Danza Contemporanea de Cuba.
But for the moment he is back in Australia and especially proud of the calibre of dancers in the competition.
“I wept when I saw these kids dance because I was so proud. I would get emotional because we come from here and I see it (the talent) in America – and I see it in Cuba too, because they have the training – but when you see it from your own people, it’s fantastic.
These kids, in this show, right now, could hold their own in any of the versions in America – any of them. And what’s so special about them is that in America they are all good but a lot of them specialise: these kids are all so well trained they do every genre.”
It’s not just Cash and his counterparts who have been impressed by the talent in this series. I’ve heard from a reliable source that Nigel Lythgoe, the creator of the popular franchise and regular judge on the US series, has also acknowledged not just the great judging and mentorship of the contestants by the judges on this series but also the depth of talent shown by the Australian contestants – noting that this Australian series has “raised the bar – to where all future productions should aim”!
This article was first published in the June-July 2014 issue of Dance Australia magazine.