‘Dancing With The Stars: Juniors’ Young Dance Pros And Veteran Mentors Announced By ABC
The Dancing With the Stars: Juniors cast is really shaping up. The kid-sized edition of the ABC celebrity ballroom competition will feature an impressive list of young pro dancers who will be mentored by familiar Dancing with The Stars pros.
The spinoff series features child celebrities paired with young professional dancers, but each pair will be assigned to a grown-up mentor and choreographer. While the celebrity contestants haven’t been officially announced, Entertainment Tonight posted the list of the mini pro dancers and their veteran mentors who are all members of the Dancing With the Stars cast or troupe. There’s even a sister team!
ET reports the Dancing With the Stars: Juniors junior pro dancers are Rylee Arnold (mentor: Lindsay Arnold); Hailey Bills (mentor Jenna Johnson); Sage Rosen (mentor: Gleb Savchenko); Lev Khmelev (mentor: Keo Motsepe); Brightyn Brems (mentor: Cheryl Burke); Elliana Walmsley (mentor: Emma Slater); Tristan Ianiero (mentor: Artem Chigvintsev); JT Church (mentor: Alan Bersten); Kamri Peterson (mentor: Witney Carson); Jake Monreal (mentor: Sasha Farber); Artyon Celestine (mentor: Brandon Armstrong); and Kameron Couch (mentor: Hayley Erbert).
If some of the junior pro dancers’ names sound familiar, it may be because they’ve competed on other popular TV dance shows like So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Got Talent, or World of Dance (Brightyn, JT, Jake, Artyon). Others have starred in music videos (Sage) or even appeared on the reality show Dance Moms (Elliana). Some of them, like Lev, are even students of Dancing With the Stars pro dancers.
The Dancing With the Stars: Juniors season marks Cheryl Burke’s return to the ABC competition show after a stint as Abby Lee Miller’s replacement on Dance Moms. Burke took to Instagram to gush about mentoring Brightyn Brems, the 12-year-old mini pro who has appeared on America’s Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance.
Burke captioned a photo of the two with “Working with young dancers is a passion of mine and I can’t wait for you all to see what these kids can do.” Given her experience on Dance Moms, Burke should have no trouble mentoring on Dancing With the Stars: Juniors.
The pro dancer and mentor news comes on the heels of the announcements that Dancing With the Stars Season 25 champ Jordan Fisher and Season 25 finalist Frankie Muniz will host the new show. In addition, DWTS vet Val Chmerkovskiy, Season 26 champ Adam Rippon, and choreographer Mandy Moore will serve as judges.
Dancing With the Stars: Juniors premieres Oct. 7 on ABC
