Introducing Dancing With The Stars Season 13′s New Pro Peta Murgatroyd!

Next up in our new Season 13 Dancing With The Stars Pro installments, is the one of the most beautiful, exciting, refreshing women dancers to hit the stage both in musical theatre productions and now Dancing With the Stars Season 13: Peta Murgatroyd!! Once again, I’m asking Heidi and Courtney for their thoughts, feelings, and predictions too which you can find at the end. Before we begin, I’d like to thank Burn The Floor, PetaMurgatroyd.com, The Marie Cauley Suite, Newsday, Regard Magazine, Music Fashion Magazine, and Pilates Style Magazine for information, pictures, etc..

Let us begin!! The beautiful Peta Murgatroyd was born July 14th in Auckland, New Zealand. At 18 months old, Peta and her family moved to Perth, Australia where her parents could give her brother and her more opportunities in life. According to Peta, her mother always knew she was “artsie” and at 4 years old, Peta started studying to dance. She trained for 12 years at the Kirov Ballet under Madame Lubov Nikonorenko and became a classically trained ballerina. Peta was also trained in Contemporary and Spanish dance! At the age of 16, Peta started to ballroom dance and only after three months of training became an Australian Open and British Youth Latin finalist.

Peta then moved to London, England to further her career and compete. Amongst many international competitions Peta finished 2nd in the Great World City Championships and was a semi-finalist in the Lion City Championships in Singapore. Peta was also a finalist in the Australian Open championships. But, nothing meant more to Peta when she placed 3rd in the world at the British Youth Latin Championships in Blackpool, England in 2006 where she “wanted to live and breathe the life of a dancer”.

In 2004, Peta’s musical theatre career really took off when she was chosen to be a cast member of Burn The Floor. Her lifelong dream of dancing on stage and living the life of a true dancer had come true. Like fellow cast mate Tristan MacManus, she travelled the world with them for 6 years. In August 2009, Burn The Floor hit Broadway. It was at this time Peta was made the lead female dancer.

It was January of 2010, Peta made a decision to pursue a career in film and television. Since that time, Peta has performed on Dancing With The Stars in Australia and America and So You Think You Can Dance in Australia and Holland. Peta has also choreographed and performed with great artists Heart, Rod Stewart, Taio Cruz, Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer Lopez, and New Kids On The Block. Peta also toured with the theatrical dance production “Ballroom With A Twist”.

But, things really started to pop for Peta again in the Spring of 2011. Peta was hired to become a member of the Dancing With The Stars Troupe. Due to her success and quick popularity on the show, she was promoted this Season as a Pro partnered with L.A. Laker Ron Artest.

Peta’s career doesn’t stop with dancing. She’s also done some modeling and recently did some fun spreads for Regard Magazine as well as Pilates Magazine. It’s no wonder ….as well as being beautiful, I’ve always thought she had a natural knack for soaking up the camera just like the dance floor.

Peta dates beloved fan favorite and former Season 10 pro dancer Damian Whitewood who she met in her homeland of Australia. The two reside together in Los Angeles, CA.

Here’s to the lovely Peta and one of my favorite women pros! We hope her run on Dancing With The Stars is a long one and we wish her much success! If you haven’t read our first profile on Tristan MacManus, you can do so here. Stay tuned, Val Chmerkovskiy is next!

Ok, here are Heidi and Court with their personal thoughts on Peta and we’d love to hear yours as well…

Courtney: Are all Kiwis & Aussies blonde, willowy, & gorgeous? Because between Peta & Kym, I’m beginning to think so 🙂 Seriously though – I think Peta may be the closest thing to a replacement for Edyta that we’ve seen so far.  Beautiful girl with a rockin’ body and impossibly long legs, and not afraid to show some skin! She also seems rather soft-spoken & calm like Edyta, which will help when it comes to dealing with potentially squirrely partners.  And she and Damian are just PRESH together – very striking, pretty couple, much like Edyta & Alec…only with a bit more personality, methinks 😉 I’m definitely excited to see just what she can do with her partner…and with the other pros, in both team & pro dances.

Heidi: Heh, you said squirrely.  🙂  Frankly, I have a hard time focusing on Peta when that pic right up there has bare chested Damian in pajama bottoms.  Oohh yeah. That’s nice.  Anyway, yeah, Peta is gorgeous and she does seem calm – but hopefully she’s not toooo quiet. She didn’t have much to say in one of the rehearsal videos I saw – and I think that was part of Damian’s problem.  I think the producers LIKE the pros to talk and have personality – or BE personalities. It certainly doesn’t hurt the show!  But we’ll see – we haven’t seen really that much of anyone yet. 🙂