Actress Jenna Dewan is hitting the ballroom to compete for the mirrorball trophy on the latest season of Dancing with the Stars. Her participation in the show’s 35th season was announced on September 2.
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Dewan, who is currently starring on the ABC Show The Rookie, will have professional dancer Val Chmerkovskiy as her partner.
According to her show bio, Dewan joined the cast of The Rookie as Lt. Bailey Nune, “a capable and resilient firefighter and paramedic” in season three. She has been a series regular since season four.
Dewan is probably best known for her role in the film Step Up. Before acting, she was a backup dancer for Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, and Missy Elliott.
Because of her extensive dance background, some people are saying that her casting on the show is unfair. She recently addressed those criticisms.
“I do not know how to ballroom dance. Let’s be clear. It’s two different languages,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “There’s parts of my dance training that’s helpful, obviously. I’ve learned choreography, I can perform, but 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.”
In fact, Dewan says that her dance training makes her “a little more nervous” because ballroom dance “feels really foreign” to her.
But ultimately, that’s why she chose to participate in the show. “I really wanted to challenge myself,” she said.
Her partner also came to her defense.
“Forget the dancing part. My advantage is that I’m partnered with an incredible human being that I’m excited to showcase and tell stories with and share space with and celebrate as a woman, as a mother, as someone that gets a chance to do what they love again,” Chmerkovskiy said.