Dancing With The Stars

Sally and I were at the live taping of Dancing With The Stars for the premiere of Season 12 Monday night, March 21, 2011. Our faces were onscreen very briefly. The recap and results will be broadcast next week. Maybe we’ll get our milliseconds of fame again.
We were offered tickets by someone we know in the business who knew that Sally had studied at Juilliard and in France, and now teaches liturgical dance and movement as a Christian expression.
We were told to report by 3:30 p.m. Monday, March 21st, to a gate at the sidewalk next to the studio where the show would be taped. We arrived at 3:05 p.m.
We went through security, got scanned, checked our cell phones, and were ushered inside where we were highly encouraged to use the facilities. We were then told to go back outside where we waited in another line.
We were soon ushered into the set. I grabbed Sally as we crossed the dance floor, spun here around and we danced a couple of steps so that we could say we danced at Dancing With The Stars. We then found our way to seats with our names taped to their backs.
The set looked smaller than I had imagined it would be. The miking was clearly not designed for those in the studio, which made it difficult to hear anything clearly, including the fabulous band.
We were located across from the judges, on the dance floor, in the fourth row back. Former DWTS dancers and their guests were in a banked section of seats to our left. Friends and family of the celebrity dancers were seated in the first row in front of us and across the dance floor.
A staffer whose job it was to whip the crowd into a suitable frenzy for live television was sent in to work the crowd before the taping, as well as during commercial breaks. He offered T-shirts that would admit the bearers backstage after the show to meet the cast, with martinis, to those who showed the most love and enthusiasm during the warm-up. We didn’t want martinis, and I have plenty of T-shirts, so I showed my normal appreciative but restrained Norwegian and Lutheran enthusiasm. Needless to say, I didn’t get a shirt.
As the time to start the show approached, “Live at five!”, the celebrities rolled in. We were four rows behind Dana Delaney and friends. Around us were current and past football players from the team beaten by the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl this year (was it the Steelers? I forget.), including Franco Harris. They were there to support a teammate in the dancing competition.
Within 20 feet to the left of us were Steve-O, Corky Ballas, Florence Henderson, Jennifer Gray, Buzz Aldrin, Brandy, Joanna Krupa, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Kyle Massey all from previous shows.
And, of course, we were four rows back from the dance floor, where we would see the current celebrity and professional dancers.
The three rows directly in front of us were filled, front to back, by Hugh Hefner, one or two of his women, an older woman, and two or three body guards.
As it came time to start the two-hour live taping, one of the interns came around with a plastic cup and asked everyone chewing gum to spit it out.
It was wonderful to see the professional dancers doing what they do so close, even though we only saw bits and partial pieces of them in between the heads and shoulders in front of us. Instead of spray tans, many of the dancers seemed to have something sprayed on to resemble their own skin tone, only with a surface that would be picked up better by TV. Kind of like stealth airplane technology, but in reverse.
Mr. Hefner was there to support one of his former girlfriends, a contestant. After she danced, the cameras turned to him for a reaction shot, and then another. There in the background were first, Sally, and then David. Us!
And then it was over. The judges’ votes had all been cast. Since we were in the “special” section, but not among the “VIPs”, we were gently and professionally asked to first leave the building, and then the lot.
We got home in time to catch all but about the first forty minutes on TV. It’s disorienting to hear a show in L.A. start with the word “Live!” and then see yourself on it in your own living room. It’s taped live, and then shown to take into account various time zones, I suppose.
What I liked best was something you can sometimes see on TV, but not feel as intensely as when you see it in person. That was the look many of the professional dancers gave their celebrity partners just before the music started. That look of strength and encouragement, begun with laser like eye contact, said “You can do this.”
Sally and I also enjoyed our conversations before, during and after the show with a young woman seated next to Sally with whom we found many things in common, including our faith. We had an exceptional experience at the taping of Dancing With the Stars, and found once again that the most enduring thing in life is the human connection that God gives us in our common faith in Jesus Christ.
As the three of us walked back to the parking lot, we talked a little about the show, but more about the state of the world.