**The DWTS Season 35 premiere kicked off as a two-night extravaganza on September 15 and 16, introducing us to 16 brand new celebrity-pro partnerships hitting the ballroom for the first time. Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough were back to host the fun, while Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough returned to the judges’ table. And let’s not forget – the premiere aired live on ABC and Disney+, with episodes available on Hulu afterwards.
And what a debut it was.
We got to see seasoned performers really start to realize that ballroom dancing is a beast of its own. We got to see total newbies surprise even themselves. We got to see athletes pick up some crazy new skills, while reality stars showed off their hidden dance talents, audiences started arguing with the judges, emotions spilled all over the dance floor and two couples said their goodbyes just as quickly as the season got started.
But beyond all the glitz, glamour and high scores, there’s a little secret that plays out in every Fred Astaire Dance Studio every day: people discovering what they can do when they’re willing to become a beginner again.
So, grab your imaginary score paddle and let’s get to the performances, surprises and lessons we learned from Premiere Week that made Season 35 such a wild ride.
Table of Contents
- 16 stars, each with their own unique starting place
- Harry Shum Jr. raises the bar for Night One
- Ezra Frech delivers an early surprise
- You don’t always need a high score to make a statement
- Taylor Hanson is definitely committing to this practice thing
- Adele Zaikman’s bittersweet professional debut doesn’t go unnoticed
- Maura Higgins stuns the Night Two crowd
- Experience doesn’t make ballroom a cakewalk
- Night Two gets an emotional rollercoaster
- What beginners (and pros alike) can learn from Premiere Week
- Best in Ballroom Fantasy Bracket – let the voting begin
- Join the conversation with #YouReact
- DWTS Season 35 Premiere FAQs for all your burning questions
- Ready to start your own dance journey?
Key Takeaways
The two-night premiere split the Season 35 cast into two nights, with the male celebrities dancing on Night One and the female celebrities taking the floor on Night Two. Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson set the bar high on the first night with 21 points, while Paralympic gold medalist Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach were hot on their heels with 20.
Maura Higgins and Mark Ballas stole the show with their Foxtrot on Night Two, racking up a 21 and leaving Jenna Dewan in the dust on the leaderboard that night.
Ashes were scattered, too – two couples got the boot after just one night, followed by another couple the next night. Fourteen pairs survived to see what the rest of the season has in store.
And maybe the biggest takeaway of them all isn’t even on a scoreboard: your starting point doesn’t mean you’re stuck, your starting point doesn’t mean you can’t learn something amazing, or your starting point doesn’t mean you can’t have a blast dancing.
1. DWTS Season 35 Begins With 16 Diverse Starting Lines
One of the things that makes Dancing with the Stars so much fun is that our contestants all come from different walks of life.
Season 35 is chock full of actors, athletes, musicians, reality personalities, TV hosts, comedians and entertainers – Harry Shum Jr., Ezra Frech, Tyler Cameron, Taylor Hanson, Guillermo Rodriguez, Connor Wood, Jenna Dewan, Julia Stiles, Maura Higgins, Amber Glenn, Giada De Laurentiis, Tatyana Ali and more.
Some of these folks had a ton of performance experience under their belts. Others were starting from scratch when it came to ballroom dancing.
That contrast makes Premiere Week especially compelling – the ballroom asks everyone the same question eventually: what can you do with what you’ve got right now?
That’s not a whole lot different from walking into a Fred Astaire Dance Studio for a first lesson. You might have danced before, or you might have two left feet and be terrified of an upcoming wedding. Different people, different histories – same first step.
JENNA JOHNSON, HARRY SHUM JR.
Harry Shum Jr. Sets the Night One Standard
Harry Shum Jr. came into Season 35 with one of the biggest advantages – and possibly the biggest curse – you can have in this competition: people already know he can dance.
As a seasoned performer who’s worked as a backup dancer, expectations were high. And Shum and Jenna Johnson delivered with a Cha-Cha that earned 21 out of 30, the highest score of Night One.
But here’s the thing – being a great dancer doesn’t mean being a great ballroom dancer. Shum’s talked about how he had to unlearn some of the things he’d learned in other styles of dance and get used to a whole new set of techniques.
That’s one of the beautiful things about ballroom – no matter how much experience you have, there’s always something new to learn. Frame, footwork, timing, partnering, lead and follow, body position, the character of each dance – it’s a whole new language to learn.
2. Ezra Frech Delivers a Performance That’s Going to be Hard to Forget
If One night performance managed to get everyone at the ballroom sitting up a bit straighter, then Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach’s Tango has got to be right up there – it definitely deserves serious consideration.
The Paralympic gold medalist danced to “Since U Been Gone” and managed to pick up 20 out of 30, which put him just behind Shum on the Night One leaderboard. The other contestants were seriously impressed by the control and finesse Frech displayed, while Bruno Tonioli raved about the commanding quality of the performance.
What makes this story even more compelling is what went on behind the scenes before the lights came on.
Frech and Karagach had to figure out how Frech’s prosthetics would work with the very specific demands of ballroom dancing. Frech himself has said that he had to adapt his equipment and movement to make the routine possible.
That’s not just an inspiring TV moment, it’s also a great example of what great dance instruction looks like.
Dance Instruction That Really Works is All About Finding the Right Path
Every dancer is different, whether it’s down to their experience, their body type or how they learn best. Good instruction isn’t about forcing every student through the same process. It’s about understanding what they’re trying to achieve and finding the best way for them to get there.
Teachers and students talk things over, and you know what? Sometimes it doesn’t work. So they adjust it, they practice, they try again.
And slowly but surely, something that used to seem impossible starts to feel like it’s within reach.
Frech’s Tango was a particularly clear example of that process – and one of Premiere Week’s best reminders that being adaptable and having great coaches behind you can open doors to new possibilities.
3. Guillermo Rodriguez Proves That the Score isn’t Always the Whole Story
And then there was Guillermo.
Guillermo Rodriguez and Witney Carson’s Cha-Cha ended up at the bottom of the Night One leaderboard with 10 out of 30. The judges saw some technical work that needed a lot of attention, but the audience wasn’t buying the scores at all.
Now, technically perfect? No.
Forgettable? Not on your life.
And that’s a crucial distinction because ballroom dancing is all about the technical stuff. Students can spend years honing their timing, foot placement, posture, frame, Cuban motion and rising and falling – and there’s loads more besides that.
But at the end of the day, it’s not all about mastering those tricky footwork steps. People start dancing because they want to feel something. They want to feel more confident, more connected, more energetic and more fun. Maybe they even want to feel a bit romantic or just get off the couch on a Tuesday night.
Guillermo may have a lot of technique left to learn, but at the end of the day he got out onto the dance floor and performed.
And for a beginner watching at home, that’s a good lesson – your first dance doesn’t have to be the best dance. It just has to be your first.
4. Taylor Hanson is a Real Commitment to Dance
Here’s a sentence we never expected to write in our Premiere Week roundup:
Taylor Hanson apparently was thinking of sleeping at the dance studio.
Yes – that Taylor Hanson.
The Hanson singer turned up to the season as a complete beginner at ballroom, partnered with Britt Stewart. Before the premiere, Hanson said that he saw ballroom as a significant challenge, despite having spent years performing music live on stage. Stewart, on the other hand, described him as an eager student.
Apparently, she wasn’t far off the mark at all.
During the Premiere Week coverage, Stewart revealed that Hanson was so dedicated to practising that he offered to sleep on a cot at the studio rather than waste any valuable practice time.
Which brings us to perhaps our favourite unofficial Premiere Week beginner philosophy:
Dance instructor: “You probably should practice.”
Taylor Hanson: “I’ll just move in then.”
For the record – and to keep the internet from being overloaded with dodgy quotes – the second line there is our joke, not a direct Hanson quote.
However the commitment behind it is all too real.
And while we don’t generally expect our students to move into the studio, there is a lesson hidden in there: progress loves repetition.
You don’t have to practice for 8 hours or become completely obsessed. Just give your body plenty of chances to repeat what you’ve learned and you’ll find that unfamiliar movements start to feel a lot more natural a lot sooner.
CONNER LEAVITT, ADELE ZAIKMAN
5. Adele Zaikman’s Professional Debut Ends a Lot Earlier Than We Hoped
Night One brought an additional storyline for everyone who followed Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro.
Adele Zaikman – who earned her place on the Season 35 professional roster by winning The Next Pro – then entered her first season partnered with Conner Leavitt.
Their Salsa earned 12 out of 30. The judges praised the enthusiasm but wanted to see a lot more Salsa technique from them. And then when the results were announced, Leavitt and Zaikman found themselves at the head of the list of couples that was eliminated from Season 35.
It’s the way of competition sometimes – you’ve worked your socks off to get there, but then it all comes to an end a lot sooner than you ever thought it would.But Zaikman’s arrival on the pro roster is definitely worth marking as a celebration in and of itself.
Dance is a hobby that can quickly turn into something much bigger. Training can become a competition. Competition can turn into teaching. And teaching can become a full-fledged career. With a dance career, the doors to all sorts of other opportunities can swing wide open, and it’s a whole lot easier to imagine all the amazing things you’ll be doing when you take that first step.
If you’ve always wondered what a career in dance could look like, then have a look at the dance career opportunities that Fred Astaire Dance Studios has to offer.
6. Night Two Rolls Around and Maura Higgins Turns the Conversation on Its Head
If Night One gave us a few potential frontrunners to keep an eye on, then Night Two went and threw a wrench in those plans.
Enter Maura Higgins.
You might’ve thought that after a tough first week of rehearsals with Mark Ballas, Higgins and Ballas were pretty much set for the leaderboard. But Higgins herself will tell you just how tough those early days were – and how grateful she is to Ballas for helping her work through the struggles and get to a point where she was actually proud of what she’d accomplished.
Then they stepped out onto the dance floor.
Their Foxtrot to “Black Velvet” earned 21 out of 30 – which, as it happens, put Higgins straight at the top of the leaderboard.
There’s just something so pure about witnessing a ballroom dance like that.
The audience gets to see the finished product – but they don’t get to see all the work that went into getting there. They don’t see all the times they stopped and started again, all the things that went wrong, all the times Higgins would have said “Again!” or “Try that one more time!” before finally getting it just right.
That’s a lesson that we at Fred Astaire Dance Studios are always coming across in our dance students – they think they can’t dance, but really they just don’t know how to dance yet.
That statement sounds similar, but it’s actually got a whole different meaning.
The first one’s an identity – it says who you are. The second one is just a starting point – it says where you are right now and what you need to learn.
We’re always going to much prefer the second interpretation.
And Maura’s transformation between Night One & Night Two gave us a prime example of that: that person who’s struggling at the beginning may be a heck of a lot closer to a breakthrough than they think.
DANIELLA KARAGACH, EZRA FRECH
7. Experience Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Easy Ballroom
And then Night Two handed us another interesting comparison.
Jenna Dewan turned up with a whole lot of dance experience behind her – just like Harry Shum Jr. did on Night One. But ballroom has its own unique demands, and even someone with that kind of experience has to adapt their skills to the style.
Dewan and Val Chmerkovskiy managed to score 19 out of 30, putting them in third place. Amber Glenn and Pasha Pashkov scored 18, just like Julia Stiles and Ezra Sosa.
That’s not saying that experience doesn’t count for anything – it totally does.
What it is saying is that learning is a lifelong process.
Even if you’ve been dancing for years, you can still develop new habits. Even if you’ve got incredible physical control, you still need to learn how to dance. And even if you can pick up a rhythm perfectly, your body still has to learn a whole new language.
There’s always something new to discover in the ballroom.
8. Night Two Takes an Emotional Turn
And then something completely unexpected happened on Night Two: it got emotional.
Ciara Miller’s Foxtrot really moved Carrie Ann Inaba, while Giada De Laurentiis got a little choked up talking about the encouragement she got from her daughter to step outside her comfort zone. And then there was Jenna Dewan, who got a little worked up before her dance after hearing Val Chmerkovskiy’s words of encouragement.
And it’s not that surprising – learning to dance is a pretty vulnerable thing to do.
You’re trying something entirely new. You’re letting someone else correct you. You’re moving your body in ways that feel unnatural to start with. And for a lot of people, you’re doing it all while being watched by millions of people.
That’s a pretty big first few lessons to take in.
Before Confidence Comes Courage
And then there’s Giada’s story – which is actually really inspiring because it gets at something a lot of adults struggle with.
We all say we’ll start – but only when we feel confident.
Problem is, that’s not how it usually works.
You walk in the door and start. You learn the first step, and then the next. You make a mistake – and then you learn to laugh about it and try again. And before you know it, you’re doing something you didn’t think you could do.
Starting helped build your confidence – not the other way round
That’s a lesson that applies way beyond the dance floor.
9. Two Nights, Two Couples Voted Off – 14 Couples Remain
Premiere Week wrapped up with two couples getting eliminated – just as quickly as they’d started.
Conner Leavitt and Adele Zaikman were the first to go after Night One. And on Night Two, Sarah Jane Nader and Hailey Bills were sent packing after a Jive that earned them just 14 pointsThat leaves 14 couples still in the running for the regular Season 35 competition.
According to the schedule for the current season, regular episodes will now be on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+, with episodes available to stream later.
And now things get really interesting.
Premiere week showed us where everyone was at the start.
Now we get to see who makes progress.
10. Think You Know Who’s Going All the Way? Play Best in Ballroom
Watching Dancing with the Stars is fun – and so is calling the season before everyone else!
Calling the season before it happens? That’s even better, and that’s exactly what we’re inviting the FADS community to do through our Best in Ballroom Fantasy Bracket on Bracketology.
Premiere week already made it tough to predict this season. Harry Shum Jr. looked solid from the get-go. Ezra Frech surprised a lot of people. Maura Higgins really stood out on Night Two. Even the more experienced performers were reminded that there’s still plenty they have to learn in the way of ballroom technique.
So what’s next?
Who improves the fastest? Who becomes the season’s dark horse? Who reaches their peak early? Who gets through a tough week and bounces back?
Join our Best in Ballroom Fantasy Ballroom Dance League on Bracketology, make your predictions and follow along as Season 35 unfolds.
And when you do, be ready for the most fun part of the fantasy competition: gloating to your friends about all the predictions you got right – while quietly forgetting about the ones you didn’t.
11. Don’t Just Watch the Dancing – Join the Conversation
Of course, sometimes just making predictions isn’t enough.
Sometimes a judge says something and you just can’t help but turn to whoever’s sitting next to you and say “we have to talk about that.”
That’s where #YouReact / Reaction Remix comes in.
Throughout Season 35, we want to invite Fred Astaire pros, students and DWTS fans to join the conversation by making reaction videos about the performances, scores, choreo, technique, judges’ comments and all the other memorable moments from each episode.
Did a score seem way too low? Set the record straight.
Did someone show off some seriously good ballroom technique? Break it down for us.
Did Bruno say something that just made you rewind the TV? We want to hear it.
The goal isn’t just to watch ballroom dancing. It’s to get people talking about it.
So next week when the show comes on and you’ve got something to cheer, complain, or just discuss, grab your camera and join us.
Watch. React. Remix. #YouReact.
Follow @fred_astaire_dance_studios throughout Season 35 for episode coverage, reactions, ballroom insights and all the other ways to join in on the fun.
12. What Can Beginning Dancers Take Away From the DWTS Season 35 Premiere?
If we could pull one thing out of the two nights of dancing, it would be this:
Don’t compare yourself to how someone else has progressed – compare yourself to how you were before.
Harry’s starting point isn’t the same as Guillermo’s. Jenna’s isn’t Maura’s. Ezra’s isn’t Taylor’s.
Yours won’t be like anyone else’s either – and it shouldn’t be.
A good dance instructor recognises that a beginner doesn’t start at the same level. That’s what the lessons are for.
At Fred Astaire Dance Studios, adults start dancing for all sorts of reasons. Some are getting ready for a wedding. Some want a new date night activity. Some want to stay active in a fun way. Others want to meet new people, build confidence or finally follow a dream they’ve had in the back of their mind for years.
And yes – sometimes people watch Dancing with the Stars and think:
“That looks like an absolute blast.”
Which is true.
DWTS Season 35 Premiere FAQ
Who got the highest score on DWTS Season 35 Premiere Night One?
Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson topped the leaderboard with 21 out of 30 for their Cha-Cha. Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach followed with 20 for their Tango.
Who had the highest score on DWTS Premiere Night Two?
Maura Higgins and Mark Ballas earned 21 out of 30 for their Foxtrot, putting them at the top of the Night Two leaderboard.
Who got the boot during the DWTS Season 35 premiere?
Conner Leavitt and Adele Zaikman were eliminated after Night One. Sarah Jane Nader and Hailey Bills were eliminated after Night Two.
What did Ezra Frech score on Dancing with the Stars?
Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach earned 20 out of 30 for their Tango during Premiere Night One.
What did Guillermo Rodriguez score?Guillermo Rodriguez and Witney Carson were awarded 10 out of 30 for their Cha-Cha. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to save them from ending up at the bottom of the Night One leaderboard, even though Guillermos performance got a memorable response from the audience.
What went wrong with voting on Premier Night One?
Online voting hit some problems during the live show. People reported that the online system went down temporarily and viewers were told that only eligible SMS votes would actually count for the night’s results.
Who are the DWTS Season 35 judges and hosts?
Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough make up the judging panel. Hosting duties fall to Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough this season.
Where can you catch Dancing with the Stars Season 35 on TV?
Dancing with the Stars is on ABC and simulcast over on Disney+ too. And if you miss an episode you’ll be able to stream it later on Hulu.
Do I really need experience of dancing before taking my first ballroom classes?
Not at all – because beginner lessons are all about teaching the basics first, and thats includes getting to grips with timing, some basic movements and your partnering abilities. So you won’t find that you need to have a clue about the subject matter before you go.
How do i get in on the FADS DWTS Season 35 campaign?
Just follow along with @fred_astaire_dance_studios, get creative with our #YouReact / Reaction Remix videos and join in the Best in Ballroom Fantasy Ballroom Dance League on Bracketology as we follow Season 35.
You Watched the Stars – Now its Time For You To Get Involved
16 celebrities appeared on the floor for Premiere Week with quite different backgrounds, abilities, aspirations and fears. Some of them seemed right at home, others looked as though they had a big job on their hands.
But one thing applied to every single one of them before they could go any further:
They had to take that first step
Maybe you’re not in this to win a Mirrorball. Maybe you just want to feel a bit more confident at a wedding. Maybe you and your other half are just looking for a fun night out that doesn’t just consist of a dinner reservation. Maybe youd like a more fun way to get some exercise, meet new people and challenge yourself.
Or maybe you’ve been watching these dancers on TV for years and have been quietly thinking to yourself “Blimey, I bet I could do that too…”
An easy way to find out is to get started with a dance class at Fred Astaire Dance Studios.
And as the season gets underway don’t just sit around waiting for things to happen. Make your predictions in our Best in Ballroom Fantasy League on Bracketology, come up with your own #YouReact videos, follow @fred_astaire_dance_studios and come back after the next episode to see the ballroom breakdown.
Because Premiere Week gave us one thing worth remembering long after the scores are forgotten:
You dont have to be any good at it first – just get started and then find out how good you can become.
