Cole Mills of Ocean Township has been dancing for at least 15 years and hopes his experience on the Latin DanceSport ballroom circuit will bolster him on the competition series. Watch video
Growing up in Ocean Township, Cole Mills played football and lacrosse. He would also skip class to go surfing. Later, as a student at Montclair State University, he joined the rugby team.
The Monmouth County teen considered himself a jack-of-all-trades kind of athlete. His extracurriculars alone would probably qualify him for such a title.
But he was also a national ballroom dancing champion. For 15 years, Mills, now 25, specialized in Latin DanceSport, racking up wins at more than 25 national competitions.
On Monday, Mills will face his latest challenge as a competitor on “So You Think You Can Dance.” The experienced dancer has made it past the audition period to the Fox show’s “academy” segment, joining fellow New Jersey dancer Emily Carr, 18, from Springfield, in the competition.
But there’s still a long stretch to go — the winner of the 15th season of “So You Think You Can Dance” will be announced in the show’s finale on Sept. 10.
Mills studied theater and dance at Montclair State University, immersing himself in ballet and modern dance. He’s also danced for Max and Val Chmerkovskiy of “Dancing with the Stars” fame, who own a studio in Fort Lee, and has performed with them in Las Vegas since he was a child.
In January, he moved to Los Angeles, and in March, auditioned for “So You Think You Can Dance” for the second time. Last year, he made the top 50.
“It’s fun to continue to push,” he says. “That environment just breeds success, when you’re surrounded by the best.”
Mills thinks getting cut the first time around benefitted his progress as a dancer.
“I myself just needed an extra year of seasoning,” he says. “2017 for me was a huge year of growth and self-reflection.”
Mills is signed with the Bloc talent agency and has worked as a background dancer for TV shows including “Saturday Night Live” and in commercials, a Swarovski campaign among them.
When he’s not dancing, Mills trains athletes using an “adaptable movement philosophy” he developed, which encourages stretching and the deconstruction of bad habits.
Mills first caught the dancing bug as a child, not long after he moved with his mother from Brooklyn and she began taking lessons at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Red Bank. She ended up going to competitions with her teacher.
“I was like, ‘I wanna do that,'” he says. As Mills began dancing nationally and globally, the mother and son team were often on the road, he says. “I kind of lived in the car a lot.”
When he was 12, Mills, a national champion, traveled to England to represent the United States in ballroom competition.
“I didn’t want to be a normal kid,” he says.
While he recalls watching the second season of “So You Think You Can Dance,” when Travis Wall came in second, Mills mostly found himself on the football or lacrosse field when he wasn’t dancing.
“There was no time for me to watch TV, ever,” he says — but he did make room for one sedentary activity: “I played a lot of video games.”
Though Mills might specialize in the type of dance more familiar to “Dancing with the Stars,” he says he’s grown significantly as a solo dancer.
“By trait, I am a ballroom Latin dancer,” Mills says. “But in the last six years I have learned everything,” he says, including hip-hop and acrobatic dance.
He’s hoping his years of experience will propel him in competition, which is filled with dancers in their teens — “prodigies,” he says.
“My biggest challenge is to stay composed while I dance,” Mills says.
In the first “academy” episode of “So You Think You Can Dance” on Monday, Mills says viewers can anticipate “a display of athleticism” from dancers who have made the cut so far.
“Hard work speaks for itself,” he says.
“So You Think You Can Dance” airs 8 p.m. on Monday, July 9 and Mondays therafter.
Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.
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