Two Canberra kids are set to join 95,000 other adoring Justin Bieber fans at Sydney's ANZ Stadium tomorrow night - except Jett Atkins and Jessie Hayes will literally be close enough to touch him.
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Jett, 11, and Jessie, 10, beat out more than 10,000 young hip-hop dancers to win a spot on stage with Justin Bieber as back-up dancers on Wednesday night. They'll perform four minutes of "commercial hip-hop" with four other dancers as Bieber sings global hit Children, before being interviewed on stage by Bieber himself.
The dancers both study with PLAY - the Dance Agency under the direction of dance teacher Cassie Grening, and had less than 24 hours to learn the choreography for Children for their audition tapes.
"Cassie messaged me late at night and said 'learn this routine' and I was like 'oh, I just want to go to bed'," Jett said.
"But I got up [the next day] and went to Jess's house and learnt the routine - it was pretty hard for me but Jess was teaching me. I'm better with her teaching me."
Jett and Jessie - whose mums Bec and Jane have been best friends since high school - both started dancing "as soon as we could walk". Jessie was a tiny ballerina at age three, while Jett found an old video tape of a Michael Jackson concert and memorised every single move.
The duo spends hours dancing at PLAY in Mitchell each week, and are part of the PLAY JNR hip-hop crew, placed second in the world at last year's Hip-Hop International competition.
Neither could believe it when they got a Facetime call from Cassie last week to say they'd be onstage with Bieber.
"I cried," Jessie said.
"I couldn't get it through my head - I had to sleep on it," Jett said.
Despite being toddlers when Bieber's first single Baby went platinum in 2010, both are huge fans.
"I love him," Jett said.
"I went to his last show in 2014 for my ninth birthday and when I was watching them I was like 'oh my God I wish I could dance on stage like them' and now I get to!
"I went back to the hotel and pretended I was Justin Bieber."
The dancers' backstage experience includes a free VIP ticket each (they're both taking their mum) and the duo will spend all afternoon on Wednesday in rehearsal for the show. They're choosing their own outfits to perform in - for Jett it's a red top and black jeans and for Jessie it's a black and white outfit. Both will have their names printed on the back of their shirts.
Jett and Jessie are pumped to be onstage with a global superstar but even more happy that they'll be doing exactly what they love.
"Dancing just makes me feel happy," Jett said.
According to Jessie, "It's like the one shot you get to let out whatever you have inside. If I'm sad, I just dance."
