Student shares stage with pop star Justin Bieber

Even when there’s no music playing, Cody Bingham is always moving to the beat.

While he waits for an appointment to begin, he’s moving his arms to the routine in his head. When he sits down for a conversation, he is still tapping his feet.

“I’ve just always liked moving,” he says. “I can’t stay still.”

Cody, 10, got the chance recently to show off his dance moves on a pretty big stage with pop star Justin Bieber. The Whitefish Middle School fifth-grader was chosen out of thousands of entries to dance with Bieber at his Portland concert March 13.

“It was such a great experience,” Cody said after returning home. “I learned a lot and got to meet some pretty cool dancers.”

His parents, Kelcey and Tawnya Bingham, traveled with him to the show. Mom Tawnya was backstage with him as he practiced for five hours before the concert.

“It was such an education for us,” she said. “All the other kids were industry kids, who had agents with them. I knew he was gifted and enjoys dancing, but I thought, ‘Wow — this hobby could become more.’”

Bringham started dancing at 5-years-old after his mom got him involved in a hip-hop dance class at Dance Elements studio just south of Whitefish. At the time, Tawnya thought it was a good winter activity for her son and she enjoyed the music. Pretty soon he was being invited to compete in competitions around the U.S., where he was most often the youngest dancer in his group.

Amy Arriaga, instructor and owner of Dance Elements, said she knew right away that Cody had talent.

“From the moment he walked in here as a 5-year-old,” she said. “I knew he was an old soul in the way he appreciated the music. He attached to movement very easily.”

For his Purpose World Tour, Bieber’s choreographer Nick Demoura announced at the beginning of March that four lucky kids from each city on his tour would get the chance to dance with him on stage. Dancers had to learn the steps to the routine for his song “Children” and then post a video to YouTube to enter.

Arriaga said Cody being selected to dance out of all the others that applied shows how talented he is.

“Most of those kids are training five to six hours per day,” she explained. “The maximum here is 12 classes — or 12 hours — per week. I wish there was more. As good as he is, imagine if he had more practice time.”

Tawnya found out about the competition on a Friday night and Cody began practicing right away. He practiced about five hours on Saturday and then on Sunday Arriaga helped him clean up his routine before taping the video. Tawnya posted the video to YouTube to be picked for the Seattle concert. They didn’t here anything until during the Seattle concert when she got an email saying he had been chosen to dance in Portland in three days.

“I screamed and ran around the house,” Cody said.

The Binghams and other parents from the dance studio immediately went online to purchase tickets to the concert. Tawnya said it had been sold out for months so those who went ended up paying three times the normal price for tickets. Several of the other moms from the dance studio took car loads of kids to the concert to support Cody.

Cody didn’t get much time with the Biebs, who they said showed up just minutes before the concert started, but he did take a photo with him and his fellow kid dancers. Most of the day was spent rehearsing, however, Cody got the chance to work and talk with the back-up dancers that perform with the show. He enjoyed talking with one of the dancers, who is from Kansas and knows what it’s like to be the only kid from a rural state trying to succeed in dance.

“I really liked talking with him,” Cody said. “He talked about how he had to travel as a kid and told me to be open to working with choreographers and learning.”

Cody said he was nervous before the concert started, but once he began dancing those nerves dissipated. Tawyna was in the pit near the stage feeling nervous for her son as he took the stage in front of a crowd of 25,000.

“It was a surreal experience,” she said. “I was super close, so I could see on his face that he was super comfortable. He wasn’t nervous — he was in his element.”

Along with other Dance Elements students, Cody travels around the country participating in workshops and competing. The group just got back from a Monsters Dance Convention, which is an all hip-hop dance event that offers instruction from industry professionals. Seven Monster alumni dancers are back-up dancers for Bieber, Arriaga noted.

Cody says enjoys hip-hop dancing the most because he likes the music and fast movements. But he also likes jazz and has done some ballet. He will be starting tap dance next year.

“Tap and hip hop are complementary,” Arriaga explains. “The tap will make his foot work a lot cleaner. He needs to be trained for everything and ready to do it. The more styles he learns the more rounded he will be and better able to mesh to what’s needed.”

To watch a video of Cody Bingham dancing with Justin Bieber, go to YouTube and search for Cody’s name.