Madonna's rollerguy: meet the choreographer who put Madonna on roller skates for her disco-friendly new album and tour.

Last year, when Fred Tallaksen heard that Madonna was returning to the disco with her then-upcoming CD Confessions on a Dance Floor, he sprang into action. "I had my agent call her tour director and say, 'If you want to do roller disco, Fred's the guy,'" recalls the Scranton, Pa.-born, Los Angeles-based choreographer, who honed his skating skills playing the lead in the Las Vegas and touring companies of Starlight Express. "They called back and said, 'Can you send pictures?' I immediately called a bunch of skaters, shot a video to the song 'Sorry,' and emailed it to them. They hired me the next day."

A few weeks later Tallaksen found himself in a London rehearsal studio teaching the queen of reinvention to roller-skate. "For three weeks it was just me and her alone, skating," recalls Tallaksen, who spent the days prior beating Madonna's skates with a hammer and molding them with his hands so they'd be broken in when she used them. "She'd shut everyone else out. We'd get a bunch of Red Bull, put on one of her mix tapes, and skate for hours and hours with no breaks." Like many of his gay peers, Tallaksen, 42, has been a Madonna fan for decades, so it was unusual, to say the least: "Madonna songs have been the soundtrack to my life," he declares, "and being with her is like being in the movie."

When it came time to shoot the actual video for "Sorry," Tallaksen was pulled from the sidelines at the last minute and put into costume when Madonna decided she wanted to include a pull-through-the-legs maneuver that only she and Fred had practiced. "I still have cuts on my hands from her knee pads," he marvels, showing off the faint scrapes. "I must have pulled her through my legs 500 times."

It was clearly a bonding experience: Madonna asked him to stage a section of her upcoming Confessions Tour, which kicks off in Los Angeles on May 21. Though the currently single Tallaksen is tight-lipped on the details of the show, he does promise, "It's going to be awesome. Madonna's in great shape and at the peak of her game. This is not like, 'I have to do this tour, and I can't wait for it to be over.' She's straining at the bit and ready to bring it."

Hensley is the author of Screening Party (Alyson Books).

RESUME

Fred Tallaksen Choreographer

Career highlights include:

TV

Malcolm in the Middle (2004 American Choreography Award; Emmy nomination) Days of Our Lives The Rosie O'Donnell Show

FILM

Austin Powers in Goldmember Circuit

STAGE

Miss Desmond Behind Bars (Ovation Award nomination)

Founder of Rhythm Extreme, corporate America's number 1 rhythmic performance troupe