Kelsey Jenning grew up in Geelong before moving to America to pursue a career as a dancer. She returned to Australia to visit family this week and spoke with Jena Carr about how she was able to make her dreams a reality.
When Kelsey Jenning was younger, she never knew that her love of dancing would take her to amazing places such as India and the USA.
The 30-year-old grew up in Geelong with dancing in her heart, but it wasn’t until she was 19 that she pursued one of her favourite activities as a career.
“Once you start dipping your toes into something, you don’t know where it can go until you try it,” Kelsey said.
“I always loved dancing in the lounge room to my favourite music when I was younger, and did the odd hip-hop class when I was a teenager.
“When I was coming out of high school, all I knew was that I wanted to try to see if I could do something with dancing.
“So, I started professionally dancing pretty late at 19 and kind of jumped into the deep end when I went to dance school with people who had been dancing since they were three.
“I started from scratch and kept training and learning new styles, which led to opportunities like dancing on roller skates, fire twirling and working overseas.”
Dancing took Kelsey to India in 2019, where she took part in Bollywood movies and explored movement through a different culture.
“India was a whole experience in itself, just different culturally and how they worked on sets, with lots of people, cameramen, helpers and long nights,” she said.
“Most shoots would go for 12 hours, and we were learning the choreography on the spot, but it was a cool experience, and it was great to see it all put together.
“I also danced at weddings, where I got to see the traditional Indian weddings, and I also danced and cheered for the IPL (Indian Premier League) with the cricket team Chennai Super Kings, which was cool, too.
“I feel like I’ve seen a bit of the entertainment culture in Bollywood, and now I’m over in America, and in some ways it’s kind of similar.”
Kelsey has been living in Las Vegas for just over a year after travelling to America to take her dancing career to the next level.
“Originally, I wanted to go to LA (Los Angeles), but everything has flowed for me in Vegas instead, and I got more work opportunities there,” she said.
“I think Vegas, being a very entertainment-based city, has the market or budget for a lot of entertainment, and then you end up doing a lot of jobs that you never thought you’d be doing.”
Kelsey said she felt lucky to be where she was with her career, and has many memories of opportunities that she either looks back on fondly or with a laugh.
“Coyote Ugly is a main one for me as I remember watching that movie as a kid and never knew I’d be doing that as my base job,” she said.
“There was a Fleetwood Mac tribute band that I was asked to do some dance stuff for called Seven Wonders, and that was before I left Australia, so that was cool as I love Fleetwood Mac.
“A hilarious one is where I had to be a dancing turtle, like almost like a ninja turtle, but also fake rapping into the mic, and that was for a massive festival called Elro, which took us to Chicago.
“Another funny job included a time by myself during the Melbourne Cup, where I had to be a roller skater, basically talking to people and saying hello to people on the streets in a jockey outfit with a horse head.
“India was like that, too, where you ended up in some crazy costumes on crazy sets doing things that you didn’t think anyone would ever pay you for.”
Moving her body and a love of music are Kelsey’s favourite parts about dancing, and she has since surrounded herself with like-minded people at her second home in Las Vegas.
“My partner, who is American, is actually a Bruno Mars impersonator,” she said.
“We met in a house dance class, which is very jumpy house music, and there’s a particular way of dancing to it, so we ran into each other there and hit it off.
“The crazy thing about Vegas is that it’s very normal for the people that you meet to have connections, like my housemate danced for Usher, and my boyfriend did some party for Janet Jackson’s son at the start of last year.
“One of the things I love about dancing is interacting with people, and when you can get a moment to look at someone and make them feel a part of it.
“Being able to make someone else have fun or feel happy through whatever they’re watching or the energy you’re giving to them is something that I like.”
