From the USA TODAY archives: Watch Stephen 'tWitch' Boss teach a reporter how to dance
Editor's note: In 2014, USA TODAY reporter Donna Freydkin got a dance lesson from Stephen "tWitch" Boss ahead of his role in the fifth installment of the "Step Up" franchise. Boss' career was just taking off: He began as a guest DJ on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2014 and quickly became a fixture on the daytime talk show until its end in 2022. Upon news of Boss' death on Dec. 13, 2022, we are resurfacing this story, originally published Aug. 6, 2014.
NEW YORK — In the original "Step Up," the 2006 dirty-dancing dynamo that launched a franchise now spanning five films, Channing Tatum's character, a troublemaker with a sense of rhythm, does what comes naturally to him. Thrusting and spinning and leaping and stepping are no big deal.
"Y'all are talking about dancing like it's rocket science or something," the buff bad boy he plays says in the film.
In fact, it's nothing like it, says Stephen "tWitch" Boss, a professional hoofer who's performed in the last three "Step Up" films, including the one opening Friday, "Step Up: All In." It's like the "Fast & Furious" movie behemoth, only instead of fast cars, you have ripped bods, shredded egos and booming beats.
Obituary:Stephen 'tWitch' Boss, dancer and 'Ellen DeGeneres Show' DJ, dies at 40
This new film, in particular, deals with some of the realities facing pro dancers: the brutal impact on your body, the even more relentless rejection and the struggle to make rent on pathetic paychecks. For Boss, who's based in Los Angeles, the biggest challenge has been "keeping the resilience of a dream alive. It takes years and years and years. JLo is our poster child. That's how you do it. She was a Fly Girl back in the '90s. You can get a great gig, but you have to continue to work. That's the way to do it."
So one has to ask Boss whether anyone, and we do mean anyone, could step up without falling down — literally or otherwise. The dancer from Montgomery, Ala., has been doing it since he was 16, and now is a regular on Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance," as well as one of Ellen DeGeneres' guest DJs. And he's married to fellow "SYTYCD" vet Allison Holker.
Tributes:Ellen DeGeneres, more celebs mourn the death of Stephen 'tWitch' Boss: 'I'm heartbroken'
"I do believe that anyone can learn how to dance. Anyone can learn choreography. Everybody knows how to dance. It's just defining the idea of what you're learning," he says. "Do you want to learn a specific style of dance? Whether you know it or not, you know how to dance. The smallest child, when they hear music, they bounce around. Everyone has it in them to dance. It's just practice."
Actually, it's a lot more than that. It's learning seemingly simple but actually complex moves that require flexibility and strength, and combining them seamlessly to blend with and accentuate the music. Oh, and doing that without looking foolish or tearing a muscle.
Easy, it's not.
Boss feels that now, he and his fellow artists are getting their due. "Dancing gets a lot of respect now ... but we have a long way to go. Dance has always been the bottom of the totem pole. Dancers used to get paid as extras in music videos. It's just recently that dancers get paid as featured talent. You want to get paid and be able to live," he says.
Watch his dance lesson below: