What To Know
- Jenna Dewan’s casting on Dancing With the Stars has been criticized because of her past dance experience.
- She and her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, defended the casting and explained why she still has a lot to learn and prove.
- Dewan also told TV Insider about her “full-circle” return to the sport 20 years after starring in Step Up.
Jenna Dewan was confirmed as a cast member on Season 35 of Dancing With the Stars, and fans had a lot to say about it. Because Dewan has past dance experience (she was previously a backup dancer for Janet Jackson and starred in the dance film Step Up), many DWTS viewers feel she will have an unfair advantage in the competition.
“I do not know how to ballroom dance,” Dewan insisted to Entertainment Weekly. “Let me be clear. It’s two different languages.”
While she admitted that her dance training will be “helpful” due to her experience with learning choreography and performing, she added, “There is a certain sense of unlearning for me. It’s a new technique, brand new technique. It almost threw me off initially because I had to unlearn a lot of … I don’t want to say bad habits … but just habits of the style that I’m used to.”
Disney/Andrew Eccles
Dewan, who is partnered with Valentin Chmerkovskiy, confirmed that ballroom dancing “feels really foreign” for her. She also noted that her experience “has its advantages, but it also has its challenges. But that was part of why I wanted to do it. I really wanted to challenge myself.”
Chmerkovskiy also defended Dewan’s casting. “It’s naive to think that this show is just about dance,” he explained. “It’s about the human experience and the human journey and how much you’re willing to reveal yourself.”
Dewan’s return to the dance floor comes the same year as the 20-year anniversary of Step Up‘s release, which she told TV Insider was a “full circle moment.” She added, “I cannot believe that dance has come back around in my life in this new and challenging way, exactly 20 years after probably the last time I trained anywhere near this kind of level in dance, and it’s powerful. It means a lot to me.”
In 2017 and 2018, Dewan hosted World of Dance, which featured Derek Hough judging alongside Jennifer Lopez and Ne-Yo (Hough is now a full-time DWTS judge.) The Rookie star said it was “hard” for her to watch the dancers compete when she was missing the sport so much.
“I was always itching a little, like, oh, I want to dance,” she admitted. “I miss dancing, you know. There’s not a lot of opportunities to actually perform. So this was really exciting, and obviously [it’s] the challenge of a new style.”
Dancing With the Stars, Season 35 Premiere, Tuesday, September 15, 8/7c, ABC
–Additional reporting by Rebecca Perlmutter
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