Dancer who considers the city his second home advances on 'So You Think You Can Dance.'

The newest season of FOX’s “So You Think You Can Dance” has some surprising Northwest representation: Australian Daniel Baker.

The 24-year-old ballet dancer explains that after coming to the United States at the age of 15, he’s considered his aunt and uncle, Joan and Bill Baker, his stateside parents — and their residence in Tualatin has become his home base.

“I miss that family environment because I’ve always been on my own, chasing my dreams,” said Daniel Baker during a trip to the area last week, “so it’s been nice to come back to — what would you call it? — family values, the suburbs. I love Tualatin.”

The Bakers, who have resided in Tualatin for more than a decade, take pride in providing some stability to their nephew — after all, participating in "So You Think You Can Dance" is grueling, even by reality television standards. Now in its ninth season, this elimination-style show pits about 20 talented dancers against each other as they attempt several rounds of new and unfamiliar choreography.

“We have about four days from the minute we set foot in the studio to the minute we perform (routines) for 7 million people and counting,” said Daniel. “We only get about four to six hours per routine, so that’s incredibly stressful, especially if you’re out of your comfort zone. I would want weeks. But you’re forced to be smart, you’re forced to pick it up quickly, you’re forced to adapt.”

Luckily, Daniel’s career has already been marked by an itinerant sense of adventure. In his audition video to FOX, he detailed his life-long fascination with the U.S. and his early intention to live here. It was this dream that spurred him to move away from his family at the age of 9 to enroll at McDonald College, an elite performing arts academy in Sydney. At 15, he attended a summer intensive course at New York City’s School of American Ballet and was quickly offered a full scholarship that enabled him to stay in the city for three years, with the school sponsoring his visa. After securing a place in the Miami City Ballet, he was able to get his green card. A move to San Francisco Ballet brought him closer to family and to opportunities on television.

“Most Australian dancers have stars in their eyes about London and the Royal Ballet,” said Joan Baker, adding that Australia is part of the British Commonwealth, making it fairly easy to gain permission to work in the United Kingdom. “But Daniel always wanted to dance in the U.S. That’s not the normal path.”

For a classically trained ballet dancer, Daniel’s path has hardly been normal. “I’ve always wanted to do commercial dance, which is concert tours, music videos,” he said. “Those jobs are so short term they won’t sponsor a visa. I worked my way up through the ballet world until I got my green card, so then I could try out for the show. I had to put in years and years of work to get where I am, just to try again with the commercial world.”

Which is where his Tualatin ties come in.

“After I left San Francisco Ballet,” Daniel said, “I moved into Tualatin with five suitcases, and that’s my home base. It will be for a while.”

According to his family, it’s a good fit.

“He’ll call it ‘country life’ because he’s only lived in big cities in the U.S., so (suburbs) are a stark contrast,” Joan said. “Foreigners have images of America based on TV and movies, so when you have a suburb like Tualatin, it seems very quaint and all-American. Daniel’s always struck by how pleasant the neighborhoods are and how nice and slower-paced it is.”

Tualatin often plays host to Daniel’s family from Australia. Parents Maree and Robert Baker, as well as siblings Shelly, Natalie and David, make an effort to travel to Tualatin once every other year.

Daniel has also found Tualatin to be accommodating to his more hectic schedule between shows and auditions. He works out at the local 24-Hour Fitness and can often be seen running with Joan’s daughter Kate, 20, and the family’s flatcoat retriever, Rocky — sometimes as far as Cook Park in Tigard.

And Daniel’s been sure to make time for his adopted community. On a recent Tuesday, he could be found in the parking lot of Smiles Northwest in Beaverton, a dental clinic partly owned by family friends Debbi and Alan Montrose. The clinic’s staff planned to film themselves performing a group Zumba routine as a submission to the National Dance Day competition, and Daniel stopped by to show them some of his moves — and to take pictures with fans who dropped by and promised to vote for him in upcoming episodes of “So You Think You Can Dance.”

“So You Think You Can Dance” airs Wednesday nights on FOX. Audience voting began with this week’s episode.