Every season of Dancing With the Stars begins with the same promise: celebrities leave their comfort zones, step into the ballroom and attempt to master dances most of them have never performed before. Yet Season 35 has revived one of the show’s oldest debates with unusual intensity — how much previous dance experience is too much?
At the center of the conversation is Glee and Crazy Rich Asians actor Harry Shum Jr., whose résumé looks considerably different from that of the average celebrity contestant. Long before television made him famous, Shum was a professional dancer. He performed with major artists, appeared in dance films and even toured with Beyoncé. (Just Jared)
That history has led some viewers to question whether he entered the competition with an advantage. But a closer look at this year’s cast reveals why the debate is more complicated: Harry is far from the only contestant who arrived with substantial experience in movement, choreography or performance. (E! Online)
Harry Shum Jr. was a professional dancer before he was a famous actor
For younger viewers, Harry may be best known as Dr. Benson “Blue” Kwan on Grey’s Anatomy. Others remember him as Mike Chang, the exceptionally gifted dancer on Glee, or from films including Crazy Rich Asians and Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Dance, however, came before much of that.
Early in his career, Shum performed professionally and toured with artists including Beyoncé. He has recalled auditioning directly in front of Beyoncé before joining her tour and later remembered dancing alongside her before thousands of people as one of the extraordinary experiences of his early career. (ELLE)
He also appeared in Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D, and his dancing became a defining part of his Glee character. (Just Jared)
So when Shum was announced as a Season 35 celebrity contestant paired with professional Jenna Johnson, questions about experience were almost inevitable.
Those questions grew louder when he immediately demonstrated strong ability in the ballroom. During the opening night, Shum and Johnson earned 21 out of 30 for their cha-cha, the highest score of that evening. (Yahoo)
But Shum has pushed back on the assumption that being an experienced dancer means ballroom dancing comes automatically.
His argument is essentially that dance styles are separate disciplines: knowing one doesn’t mean instantly mastering another. (Just Jared)
And another contestant can make virtually the same argument.
Jenna Dewan entered with an equally striking résumé
Jenna Dewan’s casting attracted perhaps even more attention.
Before she became an actress, Dewan worked professionally as a dancer. Her career included performing with Janet Jackson, and she later became famous opposite Channing Tatum in the 2006 dance movie Step Up. (People.com)
That background immediately prompted criticism from viewers who wondered why an experienced professional dancer was competing against people learning choreography from scratch.
Dewan has addressed the issue directly.
“I do not know how to ballroom dance,” she said while defending her casting, describing ballroom as a substantially different discipline from her previous work. (TV Insider)
Her first performance suggested that her existing skills nevertheless translate in useful ways. Dewan and Val Chmerkovskiy performed a tango and received 19 points, placing her among the strongest performers of the night. (People.com)
But she and Shum aren’t the only names being discussed.
Julia Stiles also has an unusual connection to dance
Then there is Julia Stiles.
Anyone who remembers the 2001 film Save the Last Dance knows why her casting immediately caught attention. Dance was central to the movie, and Stiles had trained before making it.
Yet her situation differs considerably from Shum’s and Dewan’s.
Stiles has acknowledged that a body double helped with portions of the famous Juilliard audition sequence in Save the Last Dance. She also recently revealed that criticism of her dancing years ago affected her enough that she stopped taking dance classes. (The Cut)
Her return to dancing on national television therefore represents a very different challenge.
And athletic experience creates another gray area
The argument becomes even murkier with athletes.
Olympic figure skater Amber Glenn, for example, already understands musicality, choreography, body control and performing under enormous pressure. But translating skating skills to ballroom technique requires learning an entirely different physical vocabulary. She has emphasized that dancing on a ballroom floor is not the same as performing on ice. (Cosmopolitan)
Season 35 therefore contains contestants entering from wildly different starting points: professional dancers, actors with dance training, athletes accustomed to choreographed movement and celebrities with comparatively little experience.
That imbalance isn’t new.
‘DWTS’ has faced this argument for years
Longtime viewers will remember similar debates surrounding previous contestants such as JoJo Siwa, Jordan Fisher, Heather Morris and Melissa Rycroft.
Former professional Maksim Chmerkovskiy once publicly questioned the fairness of competing against someone with extensive prior training, while Julianne Hough acknowledged at the time that differences in contestants’ abilities could be significant. (Us)
Yet experienced dancers haven’t automatically won the competition.
Technical skill is only part of the formula. Contestants must learn ballroom-specific technique, perform live, connect with their partners and earn enough viewer votes to remain in the competition.
Professional dancer Jenna Johnson has defended the show’s approach, saying she has worked with celebrities across the entire spectrum — from complete beginners to experienced performers — and describing DWTS as a unique challenge regardless of someone’s background. (Us)
Hosts Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough have similarly argued that experienced performers sometimes have to “unlearn” habits from other dance disciplines when entering ballroom. (Parade)
The debate may follow Season 35 for a while
What makes this year’s controversy particularly interesting is that there isn’t just one contestant attracting questions.
Harry Shum Jr. genuinely spent part of his career as a professional dancer and performed with Beyoncé. Jenna Dewan genuinely began her career as a professional dancer. Julia Stiles has previous dance training and starred in one of the best-known dance films of the early 2000s. Other contestants bring athletic or performance backgrounds of their own. (Just Jared)
Meanwhile, contestants with little comparable training are learning many of these skills for the first time.
The show itself has never required its celebrity cast to begin from an identical level. Season 35 simply makes those differences unusually visible.
And with Shum already demonstrating why he spent years dancing professionally, the old DWTS question is back in force: should the competition be primarily about discovering who can dance best — or about watching who improves the most?
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