Last season on Fox's So You Think You Can Dance, Pinecrest native Jeanine Mason waltzed off with the $250,000 prize and the cover spot of Dance Spirit magazine.

Doubt we'll be getting a local winner this time. For season six, producers traveled across the country in search of the hottest talent, but, alas, didn't hit Miami. On Tuesday at 9 p.m., we'll see auditions in Atlanta; the live shows with the top picks premiere Oct. 27.

The Miami Herald caught up with the hit show's judge, Nigel Lythgoe, on a conference call about what to expect from this season, Patrick Swayze and other matters.

What do you look for in a dancer?

``The biggest thing that I look for in any performer, so I won't just class it as a dancer, is charisma, without question. I don't think technical ability is enough, and it appears, from the history of So You Think You Can Dance, that I'm right, because they haven't always been the best dancers that have won.''

Katie Holmes was on the show. Any more celebs planned?

``We certainly have plans to bring celebrities back. I love the fact that everyone is getting involved with Dance, and I'm amazed at how many people come through now and turn around and say, `I was a dancer.' . . . God bless him, Patrick Swayze, he started off as a dancer and became an actor. Scott Bakula is the same. I want to try to expose and bring back a legacy that's almost been forgotten in this country of how brilliant your dancers were.''

Do you think Swayze was an inspiration?

``I just think that there are certain people, certainly in dance, that inspire, and Patrick Swayze inspired a generation with Dirty Dancing and just made it so machismo, and everybody wanted to dance, and that's just a brilliant thing. It's like there are certain members of the world that do that. Michael Jackson. Certainly, I would have said John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. There are certain milestones that come along, and Patrick Swayze created one of those.''

Any celeb guest judges planned?

``It's always difficult to put them in because I want them choreographing, and the minute they choreograph, they're not allowed to be a judge. So . . . we will still have an open chair. I would still like Paula Abdul to pop in. Jennifer Lopez has said how much she loves the program. I would love her to come in and sit down. I just don't want four judges every week. So it's when available, when possible, they will judge.''

Is there a specific trend you're seeing from the next generation of dancers?

``All I'm seeing is this exponential growth that, all of a sudden, we've brought street dancing and formally trained dancing together, and it's exploded. Whereas the formally trained dancers didn't want to take chances, the street dancers will do anything, and therefore they're teaching the formally trained, and the formally trained are turning around and teaching the street dancers lines and elevation and things. It's absolutely fantastic to see.''

-- MADELEINE MARR

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