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The professional dancer criticized the show’s judging panel, made up of Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and Derek Hough, over their perceived lack of ballroom experience.
Dancing with the Stars alum Cheryl Burke is calling out the judges of the reality competition series over their ballroom dancing expertise, or as she believes, lack thereof.
On Wednesday’s episode of her Sex, Lies and Spray Tans podcast, the professional dancer slammed the show’s judging panel — which includes Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and Derek Hough — for not being “experts” in ballroom dancing, saying they need to be more educated in the genre in order to be more “strict” in their critiques.
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While answering fan questions on the episode, Burke — who appeared on 26 seasons of DWTS before retiring in 2022 — responded to a fan who asked if she believes the ABC series “should go back to being stricter as it pertains to true ballroom dancing.” She said she does, before explaining why.
“You have to know what you’re talking about, right?” she said. “They have to be able to back up whatever they say. … If you’re just saying things because you know it’s the right terminology, and you can’t explain yourself as to why it should be a certain way, then it’s kind of hard — unless they get judges that have more ballroom experience than some of the current ones that are seated there as of last season.”
“You can’t really be more strict in a genre that you’re not an expert in is my point,” Burke continued. “And maybe that is why the show isn’t as strictly ballroom as it used to be because you got the majority of your judging panel [who are] not experts in the niche of ballroom dancing.”
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“I think that, just like the pro dancers have to continue to educate themselves on their craft, I also feel like the judges should do the same,” she added.
The two-time DWTS champion went on to stress that she believes the judges should take the adjudicator’s exam in order to further educate themselves and become an expert in dance.
According to the National Dance Council of America (NDCA), the purpose of the exam — which includes written and theory review portions — “is simply to assure that all of the Adjudicators of the NDCA, while having different ranges of careers and expertise, should all have a common base line of knowledge in all styles and a clear knowledge of what responsibilities they have as an adjudicator.”
“Derek should take his adjudicator’s exam. Carrie Ann should do it, so should Bruno,” Burke said. “I think that’s important, and why wouldn’t you wanna do that? After all these years, if you weren’t as familiar with the genre, why don’t you familiarize yourself with it?”
“Or maybe they have, I don’t know. I’m not them,” she added.
While Inaba is not trained in ballroom dancing, Hough is a professional Latin and ballroom dancer. Before becoming a judge on DWTS in 2020, Hough competed as a pro on the series, and won the show a whopping six times with his celebrity partners. Bruno, meanwhile, comes from a dancing and choreography background.
