‘Dancing With The Stars’ Take: Jenna Dewan Deserved A Partner Like Alan Bersten From The Very Beginning

By Hope Sloop

If the producers of Dancing With The Stars take nothing else away from Dedication Night, I hope it’s that it might be time to reconsider how celebrities are paired with partners; Jenna Dewan and Alan Bersten are proof positive that an obvious pairing is not always the right one.

It’s not controversial to say that Jenna Dewan has a certain intensity to her. As a mom of three, a full-time working actress — she’s literally going back and forth between DWTS rehearsals and filming for The Rookie — and somone who clearly still has the composure from their years of dance training, she is easily the most serious competitor out on the ballroom floor week after week. Perhaps her determination and temperance is the reason that producers teamed her up with three-time Mirrorball Trophy winner, Val Chmerkovskiy. Like Dewan, the veteran pro has been known to take the competition seriously (you kind of have to in order to end up with three wins under your belt), and to push his partners to the edge to the limits, both mentally and physically.

Given their matched devotion to dance and tenacity for a competition, it came as no surprise when they were announced as partners for Season 35. Flash forward several weeks, however, and the pair is missing that special something. One user on X even put it plainly (and a little harshly) that while the duo is technically excellent week after week, it feels like “watching ChatGPT in the ballroom with Claude,” a message that resonated with nearly 10,000 others who liked the post.

Cut to Dedication Night as Dewan — whose partner was pulled from the competition for one episode over a message he posted on his social media — teamed up with Bersten, who started the season with celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis, but was eliminated from the show in Week 2. While everyone waited with baited breath to see how Dancing With the Stars would address Chmerkovskiy’s absence amid the controversy, I watched for the only thing that matters during a week like Dedication Night: how does Dewan dance with another pro who isn’t her partner? The answer: Much better than with him.

I understand that there is, at least partially, an emotional dance at the center of this conversation; dedicated to Dewan’s mother, the Viennese waltz was bound to move me and much of the Dancing audience to tears with its sweet nod to someone who clearly means the world to the actress. But one thing is certain in my mind after watching the dance in the ballroom, at home on TV, and then once again while writing this story: Dewan has never looked more relaxed in her skin and on the floor.

For a fanbase that is so often divided, it’s actually shocking to see how many people agree on this one thing. One quick glance at the comment section under Dewan and Bersten’s Dedication Night dance reveals thousands of viewers who see the exact same thing in this new routine, i.e. a celeb who finally looks like they can take a breath. As noted above, Dewan and Chmerkovskiy have been consistently churning out exquisite dances since Week 1, capturing the look of a pair who could probably dance in a professional ballroom competition. But week after week, I (and many others) found that their partnership left something to be desired, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on until this week and her dance with Bersten: Dewan doesn’t need a drill sergeant, she needs a counterweight.

It’s become cliche to describe a contestant’s dance as their “breakthrough,” as it’s a term the judges have started throwing around more casually than is necessary. But to say that this dance was Dewan’s breakthrough is not only accurate, it is truly an understatement. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the first time I’ve seen her with the joie de vivre that carries other lesser dancers through the competition, simply because viewers are entranced by the fun they are having each week. Yes, this is a contest and a healthy dose of determination needs to be present, but there also needs to be a lightness and an enthusiasm for the joy of just existing on that stage. And that is what I saw for the first time this week with Dewan. For the first time in the six weeks of Dancing With the Stars Season 35, Dewan did not look like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, she simply looked like someone who was dancing and enjoying it.

All over social media, other fans took notice of the certain softness that came out of Dewan this week, as well, with one person writing, “This was her best dance yet. She seemed so at ease and able to feel the music. This is the kind of dancing I have been hoping we’d be able to see from her on this show!!” Others online asked if Bersten can stick around the rest of the season, as they felt her Dedication Night dance was the first time it felt like she was being complimented by her partner, rather than in competition with him.

And maybe that’s the lesson here? From the outside, I can see why any casting producer or executive might look at Dewan and Chmerkovskiy and see a match made in heaven as like often attracts like. But putting together two people who seem like an obvious pair doesn’t make the best combination, it just creates a partnership that steals from the celeb who will only ever get to do this once. And hey, even if Dewan specifically came in requesting Chmerkovskiy as her pro, I’ll refer to the immortal words of The Rolling Stones: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you’ll find, you get what you need.”

Hopefully, producers see what could have been, and take note.

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