Derek Hough’s DWTS 19, Week 3 Blog – On Patricia Kelly and Bethany’s Ankle

Great news…and not so great news in Derek’s blog this week. Since we had a bunch of discussion on “why does Derek get to use ‘Singing in the Rain'” and Courtney and I had posited that since he knows Patricia Kelly, that he perhaps has a leg up on the others. One of the benefits of fostering lots of relationships in the dance community, beyond the ballroom.  Here’s an excerpt from TV Guide:

This week, we’re doing the jazz to “Singin’ in the Rain.” My very first dance performance ever was to “Singing in the Rain” and I was about 3 or 4 years old. I don’t remember it at all. It’s on video somewhere. It’s me running around the stage with an umbrella. I was the only boy with a bunch of girls. I need to find that. It’d actually be really funny if we can include it in the package. I’ve always wanted to dance to this song, but I never envisioned doing it with a celebrity as s competition piece. I always thought I would do it as a Macy’s Stars of Dance piece. So I had to approach this differently. It’s not about what my body wants to do; it’s about what her body wants to do. We’re using an umbrella for it. Shocking, right? I just gotta make sure we don’t use the one Charlie used last season. I’m excited about it. It’s going to look beautiful. We’ve got little things in there that will be fun. We’re keeping it classic, but adding things in a little modern twist and musicality in there.

The cool thing is Patricia Kelly, Gene Kelly’s widow, wrote a beautiful email to me, allowing us to use the song and saying, “I’d be happy for you to use the song and to do the dance.” It was really lovely. Normally, it’s hard to get clearance for music in general, so it was really wonderful and humbling to get that from her. It’s kind of funny: We got a tweet from Taylor Swift the first week, a tweet from Meghan Trainor the second week and an email from Patricia Kelly the third week. It’s great and a little surreal to hear from the artists and to know that they’ve seen our dance. What will happen in Week 4? (Knock on wood!)