Dancing with the Stars PRO WATCH – August 26, 2010
ETA: TOLD YOU guys if I left something would happen!! Even something simple like Derek tweeting about the new season and then “high five” – which I’m forced to take as an “I’m in” since I’m unlikely to get anything else. π Anna retweeted him with a wink, Tony is packing his children in suitcases…well, that’s about enough right? I’m going to update the status a bit, below.
Well, these darn pros are being unusually mysterious and close-mouthed – except for Lacey who blares it to the world as soon as she finds out she’s back on the show. Ever occur to her, you think, that the reason she was being marginalized might just be her MOUTH?? ANYway, there have been a few hints (Kym, Tony and Mark) and not much else that I can see. I’ve updated the status based on smilies and apparent upbeat behavior. That makes me irritated. π
Chelsie Hightower – probably in
Cheryl Burke – Unknown – I assume yes
Edyta Slwinska – Unknown
Lacey Schwimmer – IN
Anna Trebunskaya – Probably In
Anna Demidova – OUT
Karina Smirnoff – Possibly In
Kym Johnson – Unknown, but tweeted she’s very excited and happy.
Ashly Costa – Probably out – tweeted “me too” to Jonathan.
Julianne Hough – OUT (Footloose)
Alec Mazo – Unknown
Derek Hough – Excited about new season and high fiving – saying IN.
Louis Van Amstel – Unknown
Mark Ballas – I bet In, tweeted he got good news today
Maks Chmerkovskiyi – Unknown, I bet In
Damian Whitewood – OUT
Dmitry Chaplin – OUT
Jonathan Roberts – OUT
Tony Dovolani – I bet in, he’s been tweeting very happily.
Baring bizarre-ness, I think the men are set at: Derek, Mark, Louis, Maks, Tony and Alec. I, like others, am having a bit of a hard time figuring Alec’s inclusion at Damian or Dmitry’s expense. I can’t figure it, actually. Makes me wonder if we have someone new who managed to keep it on the DL. OR, are we having five men and SEVEN women??
The women are a mystery – I have no clue what’s going on here besides the likely inclusions of Cheryl, Karina and Chelsie along with Lacey. Probably Kym is in based on her recent tweet. But, it’s really hard to tell. I think these women are actually much better at keeping secrets than the men. Well, except for Derek – he’s the freakin’ master of silence these days. Brat. π I find his silence just as annoying as Lacey’s mouth, if I’m being completely honest. π
I’m afraid to leave. You know someone will tweet that they’re in as soon as I go do something else. Just to spite me. π
Well, I’m not surprised about Alec because he always does the fall season. However, if you think about it, he and Louis are really the only quiet, laid-back pros. The rest are all pretty well, vocal.
With the women, I agree with you about Lacey, Karina, Kym, Cheryl, and Chelsie. I am disappointed Lacey’s back, but I’m really leaning towards the possibility they added another couple. Edyta tweeted she’s better now, and Anna has mentioned any injuries, so we could have seven women and six men. If six women, I’m not sure who will have to sit out between Anna and Edyta.
Thanks for keeping us updated on the pro watch. They are so quiet this season compared to the last two seasons.
Wow, Derek just tweeted…. Good news!
Derek just tweeted, “The season is abt 2 begin , hope everyone is excited … ξ… High five “. Sure sounds like he’s in.
Well im glad they’re bringing back alot of the pros that got the boot π in season 10 esspecialy Lacey and Kym. Lookin to me like theres gonna be 13 couples rather than 12 because if Edyta is better and can do it im sure she will ( Plus I bet the producers wouldnt be thrilled about giving up the whole only pro to be on every season of DWTS thang! ) And ive seen alot of things ( mainly on twitter ) that really make it look like Anna T is also back. So im saying 13 AND IM LOCKING THAT IN! Ha!
Anna T. just added re-tweeted Derek’s “this season’s about to begin” tweet and added a wink. I was afraid Lacey was replacing Anna, but now I feel better. π I think they probably decided to add a thirteenth cast member at the last minute, and that’s why Lacey was originally out and is now in. That or a female celebrity dropped out last minute and they didn’t have another woman to replace her and brought on an extra male instead. It definitely seems like Chelsie, Karina, and Kym are back. I don’t see why Cheryl wouldn’t be, and I’m thinking that Edyta would have said something if she wasn’t going to be back for season 11.
The producers probably made it very clear they didn’t want them saying anything until the official announcement, considering last season most of them hinted at it or straight up said they were back even though it was mentioned they weren’t allowed to say! π
Mark Ballas just tweeted Maks something about looking forward to seeing him again, plus Erin Andrews tweeted something about supporting Maks in the new season with his new partner, so looks like Maks is in. Rats. Can’t stand him.
Yea im 99.9 percent sure its 13! Oh and does anyone know if the premiere will be like two or three nites? ive seen diffrent stuff on the internet so idk. im guessing three cause the last three fall seasons have been 3 nights ( Not sure about season 5 but im pretty sure π )
Like Tony tweeting that he’s packing?
I, for one, hope Anna Trebunskaya is back! She really grew on me in Season 10, even though I was 110% on Team Nicole & Derek. I felt bad for Anna in the finale, when she and Evan got into it for the freestyle. And looking back on her dances, I respect her. To me, she really gives her partners REAL choreography. She doesn’t just dance around her partners like some of the other women who shall remain nameless. I hope Anna is in and gets a good partner this season. Of course, Brandy and Audrina will have to be gone before I can vote for a man. LOL.
Zack, I’m sure there’s a press release out there floating around – I’ll try to find it and repost it. I’d like to know how many nights there will be as well.
Buttercup, I was trying not to use stuff like Tony packing as evidence – because like I said before, if they’re under contract they have to be available to the show, pretty sure. So, it might not mean anything. He’s probably on though.
A side comment as you guys get ready for what could be a busy few days, thanks for the humor. And the insights. You have a good search option on this site and it’s fun to go back and read old posts from this time last season. I am also very much looking forward to the first few reports immediately after the cast is announced.
According to ABC Promo…12 Couples.
http://bit.ly/cYAPu3
I dont’ know where Lacey and partner fit into it though.
@Jay – As always, you are very welcome…we certainly try to inject some humor into what otherwise would be a chaotic game of are-they-or-aren’t-they. And mad props to Heidi for keeping up with all this crazy back-and-forth on Twitter and other media…I would be popping Klonopin constantly if I had to do it! Hahaha. And rest assured we have plenty of fun content planned for the period in between the cast announcement and the season premiere…including some more “Who Wore it Better?” π
@Ren – You think Louis is a laid-back pro? π Hahaha…I think he may come across as laid back while on the show, but man – after seeing some of his rants in various interviews, I daresay he can be a bit of a diva at times.
@Elizabeth – I’m with you – I would have been livid if they replaced Anna T. with Lacey! She’s miles ahead of Lacey in my eyes π
@Nathan – Agree completely about Anna’s choreography – I think she is the one that gives her celebs the most “real life ballroom” choreo, rather than tricks and filler (ahem, Cheryl), and I think that’s due to her actually being fresh out of professional competition herself. Many of the pros on the show have not competed professionally in YEARS, and I think that’s resulted in them venturing farther and farther away from meat-and-potatoes choreo and into more “interpretive” territory. Interpretive and “out of the box” can be good – SOMETIMES. But for judges like Len that want to see basic ballroom steps, I think Anna’s choreo aims to please.
As an overall thought – I’m still skeptical about them actually using Alec. The only semi-plausible explanation I can think of is that they might not be using Edyta, and thus feel obligated to use him. But I don’t see why they wouldn’t use Edyta – someone mentioned before that it would seem like the powers that be would like to keep their “longest tenured pro on the show” moniker for her intact, and judging from Edyta’s tweets yesterday, it sounds like she had Lasik eye surgery and and it went extremely well. No mention of any illness, and Lasik has little to no recovery period. Anymore, I’m leaning more toward the 5 men and 7 women theory…but who knows. Weirder things have happened – I mean, they did decide to use Lacey. Hehe π
Funny you said that Courtney. (I think thatβs resulted in them venturing farther and farther away from meat-and-potatoes choreo and into more βinterpretiveβ territory. )
That’s what other people and Len have said about Derek.
As for (Many of the pros on the show have not competed professionally in YEARS, )
Well, Cheryl just came back from BsAa traing in AT. and Maks and Tony went to a Salsa Congress in PR. They also do a lot of Judging. Chelsie still takes classes and stuff. They all try to stay current as much as possible. Anna T’s dances are boring with no glimse of creativity. It might have steps but there is nothing between steps.
Gawd, I so hope the Bristol Palin signing is a hoax. I think DWTS stepped down a notch adding her and I pray Maks doesn’t get her. I want him to have a winner.
So, if there are 12 Celeb dancers, here’s how it seems to be playing out for the most part, right?;
Ladies- Bristol Palin, Jennifer Grey, A. Partidge, Brandy, and Florence Henderson (with one more to be announced)
Men- Michael Bolton, Rick Fox, David Hasslehoff, The Situation (with two more to be announced. I hope it’s Ryan O’Neal and Johnny Weir)
Just throwing this out there. If they had Corky Ballas for Cloris, would they have him for Florence?
Man Princess Hiedi!!!! Ur good at this! looool
@Dancing – There is a big difference between judging & attending classes and actually competing. Props to those pros for doing so, but clearly it doesn’t always equate them actually incorporating those steps they learn into their choreography. One glaring example would be Cheryl & Chad’s jive this season – very little in the way of actual syllabus jive, but chock full o’ filler choreography to conceal the fact that Chad is terrible at the swing-type dances. Clever & cute? Maybe. But genuine jive? Hell no. Maks may have attended the salsa congress, but he also spends entire bars of music walking from one part of the stage to another, when he could be incorporating actual syllabus steps into his routines. As for your opinion on Anna’s choreography – I saw plenty of creativity in her dances and none of the “gaps” between the steps that you mention. Apparently America (and the judges) didn’t have any issues with it either – it took her and Evan all the way to the finale, and the criticism from the judges was about Evan’s technique, not Anna’s choreography (aside from their freestyle, which I blame more on the fact that they chose to employ an outside choreographer). As for Tony – he actually does use mainly syllabus steps. But those same gaps you seem to see in Anna’s choreography? I see them in Tony’s. He stays true to the dances, but seems to have a hard time injecting creativity into them.
Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish by bringing Derek into a coversation about Anna. I mentioned that being “interpretive” can be successful at times – and I think Derek is one of these cases. Yes, he was out of the box on his futuristic & 50’s paso dobles, but there was also a heavy percentage of syllabus steps in there – chasse capes, appels, huits, separations, and flamenco taps. And it seemed to work – he’s been nominated for how many Emmy’s now, Heidi? So I’m not sure trying to use him as an example was a valid support for your argument.
BTW Love the knew promo. Esspecialy sents it features Ashly (Costa) and mah man, Tony!
@Voguerista, I am not feeling a show with 3 middle aged men. We’ve got the Hoff, Bolton and now O’Neil? They’re nice guys and everything, but the show wants to appeal to all demographics, so I’m still going to throw newly minted 27 year old hunk Roberto Martinez of the Bachelorette in there as a possibility. Ali said SHE wasn’t approached, but Roberto could still be under consideration.
Also, actor Jason Chambers the mixed martial arts guy, I think is with Kym Johnson. Nobody is mentioning him.
^^ I just looked up Jason Chambers’s Twitter account and it looks like Kym is one of the most recent people he’s followed on there. You could be right.
@Courtney thanks for agreeing with me on Anna. Here’s a link for anyone interested at just how well Anna is. She is dancing with another pro in competition and it is beyond amazing, in my opinion. Anna is so intense and fierce and of course, just a freakin’ awesome dancer.
Thanks for the link. I LOVE Anna!! I think she’s one of the best choreographers on the show. Very creative and her and her partner’s lines are always so beautiful. I hope she’s doing the show as well as Edyta who is just as good imo.
And yeah, Louis isn’t as quiet as you think. Just hook up with him on Twitter and he’s a non-stop tweeter when the show is airing.
So, who are your fave pro dancers? Mine are Maks, Derek, Anna, and Edyta. I love Alec too.
I looooove Anna, personality and how she is as a teacher. I also like Derek. I think they are both very different yet similar. Anna does teach a lot more steps and less filler than the other pros and spends a lot more time on technique than the other pros who just dance around their celebrities. Derek has a lot of very unique choreography, and sometimes his celebrities can’t get it, but I also think he puts in a lot of content as opposed to dancing around his celebrities, so they might not get the choreo or technique down exactly, but they are given the actual steps to learn. I appreciate Anna as a teacher and it shows, because she still keeps in close contact with all her celebrities, and Steve Guttenberg still takes lessons from her, that really shows how she is as a teacher and person.
@Voguerista I was just thinking about that. Male Pro, hands down it is Derek. Female Pro, I’m giving it to Anna. These are the two pros I enjoy and respect the most.
I also like Tony a lot, especially when he was paired with Marissa. He stepped up her choreography to pro status and she delivered. Granted, she wasn’t at pro status but these two had my favorite dances of that season.
I’ve come to like Chelsie only because of the Emmy nominated Paso Doble that she did with Derek. She proved to me that she really could dance and is indeed a professional. I just couldn’t stand it when Ty past Lil’ Kim. I guess I took out my frustration with the voters on Ty and Chelsie. But, like I said, after the paso doble, I like her too.
Anna is an amazing dancer, but Karina is even better. My favourite video of Karina, back when she was with Slavik:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpKGY-AZO5M
There’s never been a pair like them.
Wow! Thanks Carlie! I really enjoyed that. Karina really does dance in this one! Guess it just shows you that these pros are really that…Pros!
E! is confirming Margaret Cho and also Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough together: HoughBaby!
http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b197540_dancing_with_stars_sources_confirm.html
Cool, thanks for the news Andie!!! But, who is Margaret Cho? I’m happy about Derek getting Jennifer.
And I so agree about Karina. She is so good as well and one of my faves.
Color me skeptical about E! actually *knowing* Derek has Jennifer (although I’m very cool with it too) – I think they read the same stuff I did and are making an educated guess. AND I’m just arrogant enough to think that they read a lot of other blogs, including this one. π
DWTS Fan – Corky did occur to me, as an alternative to Alec. But oddly, Mark hasn’t said anything. That boy can’t keep a secret or keep anything to himself to save his life, so I would have expected a comment of some sort. Unless he’s not happy about it. π
@Princess Heidi…the thought crossed my mind that they’re just parroting what they are reading here. π
Anyway Cheryl Tweeted about an hour ago:
Rise and shine! Slept in for the first time in a while. Feel great. Look forward to today! Going to find out some interesting news…
about 1 hour ago via ΓberTwitter
@Voguerista Margaret Cho is a comedianne..sometimes pretty funny, especially about her Korean heritage.
So we have speculations that check all the boxes.
Courtney, that would be 3 Emmy nominations. π Well earned ones too – pretty sure his 50’s Paso and his Argentine Tango would have been included were they not performed so late in the season. Hard to make the cut off when the dance is performed 4 days before. As for syllabus – Derek has always had plenty of those in his dances except on the rare occasion – and just because they’re not Len’s favorite syllabus steps, doesn’t mean they aren’t syllabus. The difference between Derek and probably the rest of the pros on that show is that he really does choreograph to the music – hence a quickstep that makes Len spitting mad. Some people scoff when Derek says “Blame the music” but it is so OBVIOUSLY true when you watch him and his partner dance that you’d have to be blind not to see it. That’s why he gets Emmy nominations. Just watch his Foxtrot with Nicole for the most blatantly obvious case of that – that is my absolute favorite dance of last season because it was a perfect blending of the choreography to the music. As for being out of the box on his Futuristic and 50’s Paso’s – well, that’s what the show called for. That was the point. And it was awesome. π
I have to say – using Maks attending the salsa congress (which I think, from reading his tweets, was an accident) and Cheryl taking a two week course on AT and equating it to competition is quite the stretch. Maks (or, really, Len) pissed me off this last season because he got away with something that Derek rarely gets away with – fucking around on the dance floor. Let’s ask Dmitry how he felt about a couple of Maks dances where he spent soooo many bars of music on just filler moves that meant nothing. π Derek and Dmitry have both gotten crucified for doing that – yet Maks got away with it at least twice.
I reported Jason for last season – I’m not forgetting about him. π I do agree, Andie, that I hope the three older guys is incorrect – that’s too many.
Kym did an exercise video with Jason Chambers a week or so ago. That may be why they are friendly. http://tweetphoto.com/40340507
@DWTS Fan… interesting! So it could go either way with this guy.
Saw this tweet from Maks:
Great workout with @RealDennisD. I got waaaays to go before I’m at my ‘peak’ and 3 weeks ’till I have to get there π
about 2 hours ago via UberTwitter
And this from Louis’ facebook:
There are so many more rumors in the passed few days about possible celebs on DWTS it’s quite funny what names come up.I haven’t paid too much attention b4, but now i’m so anxious my self to find out.It’s defenitely going to be very very interesting.Monday night during the bachelor pad the celebs will be announced and the pairings during good morning america wed morning.Woohoo, can’t wait
Do you think that means they’re both in?
I saw both of those and I took Maks’ to mean he was in. Louis I’m not as certain about. Of course, part of me wants to see him sit a season out so he’ll be reminded not to be so bitter about “ringers” when talking to the press. π
I think Louis is in too since he posted that he is bringing his family to LA (he’s renting them a house) for the next 3 months.
Andie, thanks. π
Who else votes that Heidi leaves again so that we get more info?
Maks is probably in cause he tweeted several hints – #1 that last weekend was his last weekend home for several months; #2 that he was headed out again on his mission to get lots of people dancing and his last stop was LA (on Thursday); #3 he tweeted to Mark that he was already IN LA and getting ready to head to the gym for cardio & stretching workouts (why do that unless you are getting ready to dance; and we already know that that’s what they get all the new peeps to do before they start teaching anything) ; #4 Mark tweeted back that he’d just gotten good news and that he couldn’t wait to see him!
I thought Lacey was a definite NO!
Thanks Ann, but I know all that. I prefer to go on solid yes and no’s, which is why I’ve qualified everything carefully. Lacey was a definite “no” but something happened and she’s back on the show. And she hasn’t shut up about it since. I feel bad for whichever woman isn’t on.
I seriously doubt Lacey would tweet she was on without the show’s permission. Just as other pros are allowed to say, or just simply give out clues. It’s not a big deal.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Lacey was told to or got permission to say that she was on this season, since ABC allowed her to tell the public that she initialy wasn’t.
Hmmm, this might be nothing or could be something ( π )? But, look at this exchange between Karina and a Johnny Weir fan at twitter;
PaolaInItaly:: @Karina_Smirnoff Beautiful dancer, will you dance with @JohnnyGWeir on #DWTS? π http://twitpic.com/2j4erk
Karina:: @PaolaInItaly of course! I loooooove Johnny!!!!
Voguerista , I was just coming here to post the same thing! π I don’t know if Karina misunderstood the question, or if she’s confirming something, but wouldn’t it be great if she and Johnny really were paired up?
YES! Indeed!! I really hope that’s the way she meant it? We will soon find out. But, this wait is just a killer. lol
Well, Vog, there are a few ways to read Karina’s answer. One, that yes she is dancing with him this season, or two that she’d love to dance with him sometime. English isn’t her native tongue so she could be having problem with tense – will versus would. I’d like to see him included, though – that would add some spice to the cast.
So true. I won’t get my hopes just yet.