In anticipation of tonight's Dancing With the Stars premiere event part deux, when the female celebrities take their inaugural spins and trips on the dance floor, we spoke to one of the program's professional dancers, Louis van Amstel. The Dutch ballroom dance champion has partnered with the likes of Priscilla Presley, Lisa Rinna, Monique Coleman and hopes to win his first DWTS title with this season's unlikely double, Kelly Osbourne.
En route to practice last week, van Amstel told us about his favorite partners, the strapless bra mishap that threatened ABC censors, Priscilla Presley's nerves and what to expect this season.
As a professional dancer, do you have any say in which celebrity you're paired up with each season?
Neither the dancers or the celebrities have any say in the matter. It's the opposite. We're the last ones to find out who we have. It's all up to ABC really. They probably have about fifty people that give their opinions on who should be teamed up.
What is the most important criteria ABC considers when partnering professionals with celebrities?
Well, the first criteria is height. The team has to look good together and then the second criteria is personality. Dancing pretty much has nothing to do with it.
Which of your past partners did you click with most?
I must say, and this is going to sound clichéd, but I had a great relationship with all of my partners. Lisa [Rinna] and I are still buddies. Priscilla [Presley] and I are still close. Even Tricia Sutter, my partner from the first season, we all still talk. And Monique [Coleman], from Season 3, and I still get together for lunch. With Tricia, we were first eliminated so I never really go to know her well enough. Lisa Rinna, gosh, people still stop me on the street and say, "That was the best season" and "We wish you would have won."
This season is going to be on fire. In terms of personal chemistry, that is one thing I love about Kelly. She's real, she's down to earth, what she is is what you get. You can expect anything out of her mouth and at the same time, you can also expect to start seeing a dancer.
There are so many dancing competition shows on television now with Dancing With the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Best Dance Crew, even Dance Your Ass Off. Which show has the most credibility in the professional dancing world?
If you look at the quality of dancing, So You Think You Can Dance is the best from not the ballroom dance industry standpoint but the dance industry in general. They see So You Think You Can Dance as the leader. In general, Dancing With the Stars is the most popular by far and opened the doors for all of the other dancing competition shows on TV today.
In any kind of live performance, especially when you are attempting fairly sophisticated dance routines with amateurs on live television, there is a lot of room for accidents. What was the closest you came to mid-dance meltdown during a taping?
The closest one would be with Priscilla. It wasn't a disaster but more of a disappointing moment. In rehearsals, she would be amazing and then she just totally blocked onstage. She made some mistakes in the steps and the judges commented on them. But Priscilla, I mean, that lady, wow. You talk about integrity and the lessons she taught me...unbelievable. This woman is so special.
The only real disaster I can remember is in Season 1 with Kelly Monaco, her entire bra came undone and she had to cover her boobs with her left hand because they would have come out, 100%.
In a situation like that, do producers stop the performance and start the dance over?
No, they've never hit that time delay button.
So, even when the music doesn't start on time, they won't re-stage the dancers?
That happens sometimes. It hasn't happened to me, thank God, but I remember in Season 3, with Mario [Lopez] and Karina [Smirnoff], their jive was half-speed and they had rehearsed until two in the morning, and their whole jive was pretty much too slow.
And going back to Priscilla's stage fright, how did you calm her nerves?
I tried to keep her out of her head and really just focus on the dance steps. What didn't help, is that her ex-husband Elvis had stage fright himself. If Priscilla tells me that Elvis Presley had a bucket next to the stage where he threw up every time he had to perform, it doesn't really help Priscilla if an icon like Elvis suffered from that problem. And I know that Barbra Streisand, she has stage fright. So the bigger celebrities apparently, suffer from those onstage nerves too.
Can you talk about your first dance with Kelly Osbourne [tonight]?
It's a Viennese waltz and cha cha relay, which is a new segment to the show. It's where there are pretty much groups of four couples and they all dance against each other, but it's all solos. So it's thirty second solos of each couple and then the judges put them in place first through fourth and that will be converted into points and that will be added to your main solo performance. So we pretty much have two dances in the first week.