Dancing With the Stars pros Derek Hough and Julianne Hough each learned crucial life skills in the ballroom.
“My coaches, my mentors [and] a lot of the lessons that I’ve learned [from the dance studio made me] who I am today as a man, and as a person,” Derek, 40, exclusively told Us Weekly while discussing the upcoming Ovation by DanceOne tour. “[It was] from my teachers, you know, the way they taught me [and] the way they [acted] toward me.”
Derek grew up dancing in his native Utah with sister Julianne, immediately 37, by his side. Their training even took them to London as teenagers for further instruction and competitions. After years of winning on the competitive circuit, the two siblings became winning pros on DWTS. (Derek is immediately a judge on the ballroom competition, while Julianne cohosts with former champ Alfonso Ribeiro.)
“There were definite life lessons along the way,” Julianne told Us. [Learning] dance and technique and professionally are important, but [also we learned] the life lessons of resilience and tenacity and how to show up and add benefit, how to be connected to your uniqueness. All of those things shaped us, from our guides and our mentors.”
While Julianne Hough quickly became a fan-favorite Dancing With the Stars pro during her tenure on the dancing competition, she initially wanted to turn down the role. “When I was 18,” Hough, 34, clarified during a Thursday, April 20, appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “Because, I was like, ‘You know, I want to be a respected actress […]
Derek and Julianne are immediately using their ballroom lessons to help launch Ovation, the first-of-its-kind dance tour that blends the traditional convention model with a full-scale competition.
“The essence of why we want to do this is to be able to serve and add benefit to the kids’ lives as a whole, not just [in] an area,” Julianne said.
Derek further noted that they tried to create an experience where kids and their parents would walk out saying, “That was amazing. I can’t wait to go again.” He and Julianne will both be coaches during various convention classes.
“I’ll be there all three days,” Derek said of the weekend experience. “That’s what’s so great about Julianne and I doing this together is that any given moment we’ll be there.”
Derek and Julianne will be teaching alongside other professional dancers, including fellow DWTS stars Mark Ballas, Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy and Tate McRae’s choreographer Robbie Blue.
Julianne Hough knows there’s nothing like a health scare to make you realize what’s important in life. Julianne, 36, told People on Tuesday, August 6, that she put aside any issues she had with brother Derek Hough after her sister-in-law, Hayley Erbert, underwent emergency surgery for a cranial hematoma in December 2023. “Something happens and […]
“To be able to, you know, be in a room with something like that to learn from, to grow from [is] gonna be incredible,” Derek gushed. “We brought this group together, like, these are people I’d want to take class from. When you extend your vocabulary of movement, it just makes you an all-around better dancer.”
The Houghs will help bring Ovation to a handful of cities later this year.
“We’re starting with seven [cities] this year. We’re really going to make each city feel unique in itself,” Julianne added. “Whether it’s the entire cast of our faculty/artists or bringing in guest people for workshops and demonstrations, like, each one is going to feel super unique.”
She continued, “There’ll be similarities in the structure, but the people and the experiences are going to be unique and different and expansive in each one.”
For Derek, he stressed that the siblings are “passionate about serving” the attendees.
“We’re here to give back and to serve these kids, and to teach and to really move them,” he told Us of the Ovation instructors. “I think that that’s a big part of it. I think that whoever we chose to be part of this, we wanted to recruit people [who] are in this to elevate, [and] they want to improve these kids’ journeys.”
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