Dancing With the Stars‘ Sharna Burgess may be the professional dancer, but she wants fans to keep their attention on partner Josh Norman.
Sharna Burgess may have the perfect foxtrot, an impeccable cha cha, and a flawless waltz, but she is hoping that fans will keep their eyes on her partner, NFL player Josh Norman, and watch as his skills improve throughout DWTS: Athletes.
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“That’s a big thing you have to learn when being a pro. Because we are professional dancers, we can easily upstage our partners. Easily. If you focus on your own dancing and not theirs, that essentially is what is going to happen. As a pro, you have to learn it’s not about you. It’s not about your dancing. It’s about you guiding and making sure they have got this and they are going to perform it to their best ability. You have to find a balance between hyping them up, being excited and going full-out for them, and also taking a back seat enough so you allow them to shine,” Burgess told Entertainment Weekly.
“At the same time, a lot of us have a language with our celebrity partners where you’ve got little reminders, little things throughout the dance to remind them to keep their posture up, keep their arms, whatever it is,” she continued. “We are focusing on that more than our own performance. You are kind of smiling and talking at the same time.”
The dancing duo were one of the eight lucky couples to make it through the first elimination round, which saw both Johnny Damon and Jamie Anderson eliminated from the competition after the fan votes and judges’ scores were tallied following performances.
Burgess and Norman are now getting ready to dance the paso doble and a team dance on Monday night’s episode.
“We have a paso doble and a team dance. That team dance is usually a freestyle kind of dance, a little jive, a little jazzy. We have Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lindsay Arnold, Chris Mazdzer and Witney Carson, Sasha Farber and Tonya Harding, and Josh and myself,” Burgess said. “We have been practicing all of it all the time. The hard part of it is that Josh didn’t see anybody for the team dance until Sunday because we didn’t have a rehearsal with them. People were traveling and it was really difficult for everybody to get together.”
The remaining celebrities in the competition are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jennie Finch, Tonya Harding, Chris Mazdzer, Mirai Nagasu, Josh Norman, Arike Ogunbowale, Gleb Savchenko, Adam Rippon, though that list will quickly grow smaller given that the season is only four weeks long, with eliminations occurring each week.
Dancing With the Stars: Athletes airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC.
