This past Monday the ABC TV show "Dancing With The Stars" wrapped up their 22nd season and announced "America’s Next Top Model" champion and actor Nyle DiMarco with partner Peta Murgatroyd as the winner of this year’s mirror ball trophy. I know, that sentence is a bit of a doozy. It sounds like the headline from Entertainment Weekly or E! News, but it only scratches the surface of a show about a celebrity or personality paired up with a professional dancer who perform dance numbers every week for 10 weeks or until the couple is eliminated, which occurs weekly.
However, the show consists of much more than judges’ scores and pre-taped rehearsal sneak peeks from the dance pairs. Each week, we learn a little more about the celebrity: where they’re from, their past struggles, their inspirations, etc. It can be humorous, but it is more genuine if anything. These people don’t play characters. They are themselves, just learning how to dance and prove they can be the best dancer of the season.
What makes the 22nd season of "Dancing With The Stars" such a stand-out from past seasons is that Nyle, the winner, is deaf. He relied on Peta immensely for timing and musicality since he cannot hear the music himself, and this was no pity vote. Nyle developed into an incredibly good dancer, and each week he would always mention how he wants to educate more people on the deaf community and advocate for those who are deaf or hard of hearing. To put it simply, seeing Nyle dance was as inspiring as it was motivating, and that’s the feeling I experience when watching this show.
Last season, Bindi Irwin, daughter of famous Steve Irwin performed a dance routine in memory of her father that brought on a lot of tears and a lot of views. Those who lost their parents at a young age could relate, dancers watching could admire the choreography and spectators could take it all in.
"Dancing With The Stars" showcases how necessary the performance arts are. In a sense, dance is a form of communication. I have never been a dancer (unless you include one year of ballet when I was seven), but the stories you hear and then see acted out through a dance performance are wild. A participant on the show starts off with awkward and stiff movements and then throughout the season transitions into a dance skill that can almost rival the professional dancers...almost. There are seldom amounts of drama and no cat fights. The show gives viewers the journeys of 12 celebrity participants as they strive to climb their way to first place.
