Elizabeth Berkley and Jerry Mitchell Step It Up and Dance

Every decade or so TV viewers become infatuated with dancing. Although our parents and grandparents went through their own unique dancing phases in film and on TV, in the 80s there were movies like Flashdance, Footloose, and Fame, which spawned a hugely popular TV series. In the '90s, fans lost their interest in dancing before the reality era paved the way for today's huge ratings garnering talent competitions. Now that fans have tuned in to such hits as Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance, Bravo has enlisted former Showgirls actress and accomplished dancer Elizabeth Berkley to host Step It Up and Dance, which takes the successful formula of the TV dance competition one step further into the homes and lives of the dancers.

With so many similar dance competitions on the airwaves, Bravo also enlisted successful Broadway choreographer Jerry Mitchell to server as the mentor to all of the contestants. Mitchell is the only choreographers to ever have three Broadway musicals running at the same time, which happened for a second time in 2005 with the simultaneous runs of "Hairspray," "La Cage Aux Folles" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." Prior to those productions, Mitchell choreographed the Broadway revivals of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (both on stage and in film).

With Step It Up and Dance about to make its debut on Thursday, April 3 at 11pm before dancing its way to the 10pm slot the following week, The Deadbolt caught up to Berkley and Mitchell on a recent conference call to talk dance, various styles, how the series will be different from the network competition, and what Elizabeth Berkley thinks of her former Saved By the Bell co-star, Mario Lopez.

Elizabeth Berkley on dealing with injuries:

"Our tool as a dancer is our body and obviously it’s a delicate thing at times. And we push ourselves and push ourselves beyond the norm, so it’s obviously essential to always stay warm and warm-up before, because sometimes people just go right into it... always warm up and truly listen to your body. With some people, the adrenaline and the drive and the passion sometimes overtake that little voice inside when you know something is not okay. And so it’s really important to just keep in tune with it and listen to your body at those moments where it’s saying to you, 'That’s enough,' or 'This is not making me comfortable,' to really honor that."

Jerry Mitchell on which dance style he likes the least:

"Do I like the least? If you would have asked me that 15 years ago, I would have probably said hip-hop. But today, it’s probably my favorite thing. It’s sort of strange. I think the more - and this is probably another great thing about this show - the more you’re exposed to different things, the more open you become to those possibilities. And I find as I’ve grown as a dancer, I’ve come to appreciate other styles of dance and other choreographers, and the way they work. I’m like a freak for YouTube dance stuff, because I see so many different things. Somebody just sent me something the other day by a dance company that’s doing this amazing aerial work and I was so mesmerized by it. So I don’t think I have a style of dance that I don’t like because movement is movement and anything from Pina Bausch to Paul Taylor, to a Broadway show, to a movie musical, to hip-hop... I’m for it all. I love it all. Even in the Dancing with the Stars ballroom, I’m so into it. I just love dance, anywhere I can get it, anyway."

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