‘I do not know how to ballroom dance’: Jenna Dewan defends DWTS casting amid criticism

I genuinely think that every single year when the Dancing With The Stars cast list is announced there’s always someone in there who we all already know can dance and it doesn’t go down well, and that’s the exact case this year for Jenna Dewan. 

She’s received some criticism over her casting from those who think she already has too much dancing experience, after all she was quite literally a backup dancer for Janet Jackson and who could forget her iconic role in Step Up?!

However, Jenna slammed the backlash in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, sharing: “I do not know how to ballroom dance. Let’s be clear. It’s two different languages. 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.”

She admits that already knowing how to dance actually makes her feel “a little more nervous” because ballroom “feels really foreign.” She explained: “It’s not like you’re giving me a style that I’ve done — I can go out there and do that. It 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.”

Her Dancing With The Stars partner Val Chmerkovskiy, also defended Jenna Dewan, saying that in the end “it’s all relative.”

He shared: “First of all, it’s naive to think that this show is just about dance. It’s about the human experience and the human journey and how much you’re willing to reveal yourself. Dance is a vehicle for us to find out more about these people — and I think that’s our advantage.

“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. That’s what I think our advantages are. And I’m excited to celebrate that, hopefully for as long as people are willing to vote for us.”

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