While it appeared Martha Stewart pulled some very impressive dance moves during her Skechers Super Bowl commercial, two professional dancers were behind those moves, including Olathe West graduate Kaden Potter.
Both Potter and fellow dancer Brett Kessler were featured in the ad, with Stewart superimposed over their bodies. So while it looked like Stewart, the dancing was done by Potter and Kessler.
“As dancers, we aspire to be on stage and to go on tour and dance with high profile people,” Potter said. “In reality, jobs like these, like this silly Super Bowl commercial where I body double for Martha Stewart, this is probably going to be one of the biggest career bookings I ever have, and it was my first really big booking.”
Watch the commercial below:
From Shawnee to Las Vegas
Potter has been dancing since he was in elementary school, when his dad put him in his fourth grade talent show. He later found inspiration from professional dancer Fik-Shun Stegall and began uploading his own dancing videos online.
He began training and dancing competitively, spending time at two Shawnee-based studios: the Dance Factory and Dance Expressions. While he knew he wanted to dance professionally, Potter said he wasn’t sure what direction to take.
After graduating from Olathe West in 2022, Potter headed west to Las Vegas, where he had a scholarship for a six-month dance program.
“We are so proud of Owl grad Kaden Potter who is now a professional dancer and stepped in for Martha Stewart in the Skechers commercial during the Super Bowl,” said Olathe West High School Principal Jay Novacek. “Our OW community may remember Kaden doing a backflip on stage at his graduation, and now he is showcasing his talents nationwide.”
After completing the program in Las Vegas, Potter made his way to Los Angeles where he signed with talent agency McDonald Selznick Associates.
There’s a lot of routes for dancers to book work, some are through in-person auditions and others are through submitting self-tapes. For the Skechers ad, Potter submitted a self-tape of him doing a Tik-Tok dance trend in his house.
More than 800 people submitted self-tapes for this booking, though none of them knew what it would be for, including Potter.
“I’ve submitted probably over 25 self-tapes since moving out here almost two years ago,” Potter said. “I’d never gotten a response from one, and I hadn’t booked any auditions being out here. You just have to keep doing it and hope that it’ll pay off and luckily I got a booking for this.”
Once he got the callback, Skechers called him in for a test shoot. Potter went to the company’s headquarters, tried a few different dance moves and shortly after, got the call saying he booked a national commercial body doubling for Stewart.
He filmed the commercial in September, and while things were hectic on set, he did get to chat with Stewart behind the scenes.
“She was super sweet,” Potter said. “I think she was surprised at first that it was two guys being her body doubles … She was a pleasure to work with, she was great to be around.”
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