LSU dancers land music video

• By CASSIE LEBLANC
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Nov 6, 2009 - Page: 1D

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Fans at LSU’s Halloween night football game against Tulane saw the Tiger Girls’ music video prowess on the big screen.

With their precision dance moves, the Tiger Girls helped Mike the Tiger recreate Michael Jackson’s classic “Thriller” video.

But video spoofs are not the limit for this team of dancers, who typically perform during breaks in the action at LSU basketball games.

Check out Carrie Underwood’s “Cowboy Casanova” video, in which three of the background dancers are LSU Tiger Girls.

Seniors Lauren Hammond, of Slidell, and Heidi Hankin, of Lake Charles, along with freshman Katherine Frederickson, of Baton Rouge, found that years of practicing such dance moves as the arabesque and the pirouette paid off when they auditioned for the parts in late August.

They didn’t know at the time of the casting call in New Orleans whose video the tryouts were for — only that she was a multiplatinum award-winning artist.

“My studio dance teacher told me about the auditions, so I sent in a tape,” Frederickson said. Hammond and Hankin participated in the live auditions and then waited three days to learn their fate.

“All three of us pretty much spent the entire weekend together just waiting for a response,” Hammond said. “We all received the e-mail Sunday night and that’s when we found out the music video was going to be for Carrie Underwood.”

After receiving the e-mail, things moved quickly. The three Tiger Girls, along with two other women, rehearsed the dances with the choreographer the following week at a hotel ballroom in New Orleans. Underwood practiced with the women on the second day.

Filming of the video in New Orleans took two days. The days were long, they said, not finishing until the early hours of the morning.

The Tiger Girls said Carrie Underwood was shy in person but comfortable in front of the camera.

“She was so tiny and short,” Hammond said. “It was amazing to see such a small person with such an amazingly strong singing voice.”

“Sometimes during the tapings the choreographer would decide to change part of the dance, show us one time and expect us to be able to do it,” Hankin said. “We have to learn game-day dances fast, so our experience with LSU Tiger Girls helped a lot.”