ADAM LARKEY / ABC
Former pro football all-star Emmitt Smith was the winner of the last round of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," thanks to the help he got from teacher Cheryl Burke. |
|
Cheryl Burke isn't just a light-footed terpsichorean, winner of several championships in professional ballroom dancing competitions.
She's also a gifted teacher.
No accident that the last two celebrity winners of ABC's “Dancing With the Stars” surprise hit reality show – former 98 Degrees pop star Drew Lachey and former Dallas Cowboys all-star running back Emmitt Smith – were both her students.
Tomorrow, Burke and Lachey will dance at San Diego's ipayOne Center at the Sports Arena, kicking off a nationwide tour that will take them to 38 one-nighters from now to Feb.11 in Atlantic City. Modeled on the tours that have taken “American Idol” singers to arenas across the country, the “Dancing” tour will present a half-dozen celebrity dancers from the television show along with their professional partners.
This fall, in its third season, “Dancing” could have danced all night. It dominated ratings on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and made a household name of Chula Vista's Mario Lopez, previously known mainly for a role in “Saved by the Bell” and as host of minor cable shows. Actor John O'Hurley, a first-round finalist, credited “Dancing” with giving him back his name in the public eye; previously, most fans referred to him as the character he played on “Seinfeld,” catalog mogul J. Peterman. Thanks to “Dancing With the Stars,” Jerry Springer, the shame of daytime TV, became the humble, witty sweetheart of prime time.
DATEBOOK
“Dancing With the Stars”
TV's dance show opens its national tour in San Diego; 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the ipayOne Center at the Sports Arena
|
But Burke is arguably the real star of the show, the one to watch. More than a dancer, she's also the lovely, leggy Svengali with the mysterious talent for making dancing stars of clumsy beginners.
Practice for the tour has been grueling, Burke said during a break the other day. It started at 10 a.m. and went on until 8 p.m. six days a week. That's a lot of dancing. But not too much for the 22-year-old Burke.
“It's tiring, but I have a lot of fun,” she said. “And there's nothing like doing something you love and getting paid for it. So far so good, we've finally got everything together, and now we're just running through it.”
Burke and Lachey will perform two dances together during the stage show, Burke said, a pasodoble to Michael Jackson's “Thriller,” and a freestyle number to “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy),” a country song recorded by the duo Big and Rich.
BOB D'AMICO / ABC
Burke will be paired again with Drew Lachey in the "Dancing With the Stars"live show.
|
A highlight of the last round of “Dancing With the Stars” was Smith's visit to Burke's family home in Atherton, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her father, a dentist, and her mother, owner of a nursing agency, have added a full-size ballroom to their home. She practices there when she's home, and they use it for parties.
Her parents, she said, are both enthusiastic recreational dancers. Burke's mother took her to dancing lessons when she was 4, and at 11 she switched from ballet to ballroom.
“My mom always wanted me to have a passion for something besides just going to school every day,” Burke said. “She put me into a lot of extracurricular activities. I just loved to dance, so I chose that.”
The pro dancers get four to six weeks to turn their celebrity students into credible dance contestants. Making champion dancers of Lachey and Smith, Burke said, was a matter of finding their strong points and weak points, and strutting the former while dancing around the latter.
“You can't turn everybody into the best technical dancer in a matter of weeks,” she said. “What you need to do is look at what they're good at and capitalize on that. Drew picked up the technique quite fast, so I just made sure it was easy enough for him to be able to improve.
“If you give someone too much choreography, or if it's too difficult for them, they have no room to bring their own style into the dance.”
Smith, she added, arrived with a few flashy dance moves of his own. “He had to teach me a couple of moves he'd done before. So I incorporated some of what he knew into our dances.”
Burke begins, she said, by teaching “the basic technique of our first dance, and a little bit of the discipline of ballroom dancing.”
But Smith did not take naturally to the tango, she said.
“It was really difficult for both of us because he's such a big guy and you have to stay in hold the whole time and have to be really close with each other,” Burke explained. “Tango was not Emmitt's favorite dance, just because of his build, and mine put together.”
Now, she's looking ahead to the tour, her first.
“It'll be really intense,” Burke said, “two hours of dancing every night, 38 different times.
“I will feel it, but it'll be a lot of fun, performing in front of thousands of people in big arenas. I look forward to it.”
Robert P. Laurence is a former TV critic for the Union-Tribune.
Who are these people?
Not exactly ballroom immortals, but celebrities just slick enough for reality TV and the “Dancing With the Stars” national tour:
Harry Hamlin: People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in 1987, he starred in “L.A. Law.” He joined “Dancing” in the third season (following wife Lisa Rinna's appearance in Season 2) but proved rather klutzy and was eliminated early. He dances with Karina Smirnoff.
Drew Lachey: An Army vet and onetime EMT, he joined brother Nick in the boy band 98 Degrees. He also had a role in Broadway's “Rent.” Strong, nimble and quick, he won the second season competition. He'll dance with Cheryl Burke.
Joey Lawrence: A B-list celebrity – “Blossom,” “Gimme a Break!” and “American Dreams” – who became prime-time famous in the third season of “Dancing.” For a few minutes, he looked as though he might win. He's paired with Edyta Sliwinska.
Joey McIntyre: Once one of the New Kids on the Block, he played a teacher on “Boston Public” and he has lately starred in “Wicked” on Broadway. He danced on Season 1 of “Dancing” and will be paired with Kym Johnson.
Lisa Rinna: The only woman celebrity dancer on tour, she danced in Season 2. She starred in “Days of Our Lives” and “Melrose Place” and is married to fellow celebrity dancer Harry Hamlin. More determined than skilled as a dancer, she'll be paired with Louis Van Amstel.
– ROBERT P. LAURENCE
