This week’s episode of Dancing With the Stars promises to shake things up, because every celebrity has swapped professional partners! How will James Maslow dance without sexy siren Peta Murgatroyd? Will Meryl Davis create the same passion with a new partner? I chatted with Anna Trebunskaya, the fiery redhead who danced professionally on DWTS for 10 seasons, for her take on this year’s contestants. Anna had excellent insight into the competition and she also weighed in on who she thinks will win…
Charlie White & Sharna and Meryl Davis & Maks are obvious choices to win, but Anna’s also impressed by amputee snowboarder Amy Purdy. “Every week Amy is bringing something really cool and really strong and everything she does just leaves us in awe. In last week’s show, the judges gave her nines, which is a good score, but I thought there were a few tens that could have been given and I was really surprised that they didn’t give them to her.”
Anna also thinks that James Maslow & Peta are a fun couple to watch fun to watch, “James is his own thing, but I really like that team. They are both nice to look at. They are both really hot people, but also James is bringing a really good product to the ballroom. And he’s getting better and better every week. I’m impressed.”
Billy Dee Williams withdrew from last week’s competition due to injury, so I asked Anna how the competitors might be feeling physically. She said, “after a month and a half of everyday rehearsal, not having a single day off, the competitors are feeling it in their bodies. It’s fatigue; the body gets exhausted and it’s not getting enough time to recover. And if you have injuries in the past, those injuries will only flare up.”
Anna was paired with Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek, for Season 10 of Dancing With the Stars, so I asked her if Evan was a similar dancer to Charlie White. I was surprised to learn how different they are. Explains Anna, “Evan was a much taller person, so even though they have similar ice skating backgrounds, the way they move is different. And, Evan was a singles skater and he never had to have a partner, and the whole partnering was quite new to him, and he really had to learn fast. Charlie has been partnered with a female since he was a kid. It’s very natural for Charlie to be aware of the girl and present the girl, and lift the girl. Charlie is really great and natural with all of that, we saw that in his very first dance when he had contemporary.”
While Anna admits that Charlie and Meryl have more experience than their competitors, she doesn’t think it’s unfair. “They definitely have advantages over the other celebrities. At the same time, they are judged on a much higher level.”
Since Anna was last on Dancing With the Stars, she’s added a huge new challenge to her life — motherhood. She glowed, “I had a baby, she’s 10 weeks old and I’m really enjoying being a mommy. I had to slow down a lot, which is very foreign to me because I’m used to go-go-go and doing 3 or 4 things a day, and with a child you can’t. You have to pick and choose what you’d rather spend your time doing.”
I asked Anna if she feels pressure to fit back into her skimpy ballroom costumes and she says, “Nope! but I’m getting help. I was fortunate enough to get The Cinch Tummy Wrap. It’s really helped me because even though I didn’t work out at all the first 6 weeks, I actually lost a lot of the inches and I was able to get into my bigger-sized jeans. You know, how every woman has 3 different sized of jeans in her closet, just in case? It’s taken a lot of the pressure off of me to get back into shape.” I had never heard of this so she explained, “The Cinch is based on a very old tradition in a lot of countries, to do binding after women give birth. The idea behind it is that everything in your body has been so stretched out that you need to help get it back together. The gentle compression helps put your looseness and your organs back where they need to be. I can even sleep in it, which is a lot more comfortable than the old-fashioned way, where you bind yourself and keep it on for a few weeks.”
Anna relishes motherhood, but says she’d love to return to Dancing With The Stars, “I’m always open for Dancing to the Stars. Anything they want me to do, I’ll do for them. I love the show. It’s my other family, my TV family. I’ll always be excited to go back and visit my family.” I think Anna would be an excellent guest judge on this season of DWTS!
Anna’s Dancing With The Stars dance partners
Season 2, NFL hall-of-famer Jerry Rice, Finished Second
Season 5, Model Albert Reed, Finished 11th
Season 6, Comedic actor, Steve Guttenberg, Finished 10th
Season 9, MMA fighter, Chuck Liddell, Finished 11th
Season 10, Olympic gold medal winning ice skater, Evan Lysacek, Finished Second
Season 11, NFL hall-of-famer Kurt Warner, Finished 5th
Season 12, Former Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, Finished 9th
Season 13, fashion guru Carson Kressley, Finished 8th
Season 14, Actor Jack Wagner, Finished 11th
Season 15 (DWTS All-stars), Drew Lachey, Finished 11th
What do you think? Does Anna have it right, that Charlie, Meryl and Amy will be the top 3?
image © ABC
