The Dancing with the Stars Season Nineteen première will be Monday, September 15th, with results shows on Tuesdays restored for at least the first two weeks.
ABC has scheduled the cast announcement for Thursday, September 4th.
A fansite is reporting that the cast of pro dancers will be announced tomorrow (Wednesday, August 13th) on “Good Morning America”. Not too sure about that – usually, the pro cast isn’t settled until all the Stars have been signed.
The show has a new producer, Rob Wade, a prodigal son of sorts who was with the show from Seasons One through Eleven, then detoured through “X Factor” and “America’s Got Talent”.
I was wrong; they did announce the pro cast:
Cheryl Burke
Karina Smirnoff
Witney Carson
Emma Slater
Peta Murgatroyd
Allison Holker
Mark Ballas
Val Chmerkovskiy
Tony Dovolani
Derek Hough
Artem Chigvintsev
Keoikantse Motsepe
The new pros:
Allison Holker is a frequent dance partner of Derek Hough’s. She is mostly known as a contemporary dancer, but has some ballroom training.
Artem Chigvintsev is alighting from the mother ship, “Strictly Come Dancing”, where his record includes a win, a finals, and two mid-pack placements. And, yeah, ex-boyfriend of Carrie Ann Inaba.
Keoikantse Motsepe dominated both Standard and Latin comps in South Africa for years; more recently, he’s been touring in Burn the Floor (ballroom show). The producers have been hoping for buzz about him being their first black pro.
A huge proportion of ballroom, latin, and swing dances have origins in the New World African diaspora, but that culture is mostly West African-based (some Central African). As a South African, Motsepe has about as much cultural connection there as Chigvintsev does. DWTS itself is of British origins, and I’m thinking that black people must all look alike to some of TPTB. The British influence in South Africa would be more of an asset to Motsepe in International comps (ruled by the ISTD) than his skin color.
(Africa is a b-i-i-i-g continent – the distance from the Bight of Benin to the southern tip of Africa is about the same as to the western shores of the Black Sea.)
Most fans posting so far seem fairly happy with this list. A major exception is Sharna Burgess’s boyfriend, Paul Kirkland, who has been majorly hot (via Twitter) on her behalf at the show’s rather shabbily having not told her in advance of the broadcast that she hadn’t made the cut.
The official cast announcement isn’t until Thursday, September 4th, but a full set of leaks and rumors has been curated by fansites:
Betsey Johnson & Tony Dovolani
LoLo Jones & Keoikantse Motsepe
Bethany Mota & Derek Hough
Janel Parrish & Val Chmerkovskiy
Sadie Robertson & Mark Ballas
Lea Thompson & Artem Chigvintsev
Jonathan Bennett & Allison Holker
Tommy Chong & Peta Murgatroyd
Randy Couture & Karina Smirnoff
Alfonso Ribeiro & Witney Carson
Antonio Sabato Jr. & Cheryl Burke
Michael Waltrip & Emma Slater
“a major Hollywood star” & Sharna Burgess
(Sharna was added after the original pro cast announcement)
Other notes: hosts, regular judges, and orchestra are unchanged from last season. Julianne Hough has been added as a fourth judge; the troupe dancers will be Lindsey Arnold, Henry Byalikov, Sasha Farber, and Jenna Johnson.
I’ll go ahead and predict Lea Thompson & Artem Chigvintsev for the win. Artem won Strictly Come Dancing a couple years ago. I’ve always hoped Lea would be on dwts. But thought her background disqualified her.
from Lea’s wiki. She certainly has a strong childhood dance background. I don’t know if she’s continued as an adult. She may be a shocker elimination if she’s too good. Voters sometimes turn on dwts ringers.
I’ve heard of Lea Thompson, Alfonso Ribeiro (who I believe has a pretty strong dance background), and I suppose Michael Waltrip is a car racer. I’ve heard of Darryl Waltrip.
Funny how it worked out. We got a former Strictly pro winner (Artem) and they got Tristan. I think people will be quite surprised at Artem’s choreography. He’s really good. He’ll give Val and Derek something to worry about.
I still wish they’d do a seniors season. Sixty and up. Schedule it every other week to give them longer breaks. There’s some older celebrities that got a lot of dance training in theater classes. We could have a very competitive and enjoyable season.
The older celebs get too beat up and injured trying to compete against the younger ones. That’s my biggest concern with Lea Thompson. She has a very strong ballet background. But she’s 53 and I don’t know what the weekly grind will do to her. She should be a strong finalist if her body holds up.
The thing with ‘YouTube sensation’ is that they are as much a star as any other media star in today’s world. To us old farts (and I’m not old…mid 30s, but compared to the target demo, I’m old), YouTube is a place where we go occasionally to find specific videos or types of videos, or to watch things that friends link to from time to time.
To a lot of younger people, though, they practically live on YouTube…it probably gets more interaction for a lot of teenagers and early 20somethings than TV or movies. So the ‘stars’ of YouTube, while home grown and not pinging the radar most over 30, are still genuine stars for a lot of people.
Well, in this case, it’s a pretty apt title. A quick look at her YouTube channel shows she’s garnering between 2 and 4 million views on each one of her videos, with some of them approaching 9 million views. That’s frankly as much viewership as a lot of primetime television, and it’s not like there’s a full cast…it’s pretty much just her. Business Insider estimates that she’s probably pulling in half a million bucks a year from YouTube, plus whatever the other endorsements, TV show appearances, etc. She has her own line at Aeropostale.
