Dancing with the Stars: Live! North American Tour Review

Dancing with the Stars: Live! North American Tour Review

Balboa Theater San Diego, CA - February 9, 2015

Photos and story by Cynthia Duke

Dancing with the Stars live tour is a spectacular 90 minutes of adrenalized performance. Just what you’d expect from the ABC hit show that first aired in 2005. The 40 city tour started in Niagra Falls, NY December 27, 2014 and will be ending in L.A., CA. With just four tour dates left, all in California, there’s not much opportunity left to catch this event. For those of you in Cali, the following are the remaining dates:

Wed 11-Feb San Jose, CA Center for the Performing Arts

Thu 12-Feb Santa Rosa, CA Wells Fargo Center for the Arts

Sat 14-Feb Thousand Oaks, CA Fred Kavli Theatre for the Performing Arts

Sun 15-Feb Los Angeles, CA Nokia Theatre LA Live

Season 19 contestant and winner, Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air), host this shin dig in a very humorous tone. Alfonso and his dancing partner from the show, Witney Carson, bounced well off each other giving each other quips and jabs throughout.

The cast line up including Alfonso and Witney are Kym Johnson, Keo Motsepe, Sasha Farber, Mark Ballas, Valentin Chmerkovskiy and Emma Slater. Personally I thought this was going to have some of the celebrity cast throughout the seasons,

but I was wrong. It’s all pros. Except for Alfonso, of course, but he’s pretty light on his feet too and as soon as he did the Carlton dance the audience applauded and screamed in excitement.

Alfonso introduced us to Mark Ballas and Valentin’s other passions. Playing musical instruments. Valentin with violin and Mark with guitar. Mark currently has a CD out called, “Kicking Clouds”, available on iTunes.

Mark Ballas and his musical partner, Dillon Chambers then perform one of their tunes followed by Valentin on violin with a dance. They are just as talented with their instruments as their feet. I might add at this point that when Alfonso told us what they played, Witney was on stage as well and chimed in that she played “something” too. Alfonso hilariously brushed her off and ignored her. So when the other too finish their performances, she comes out with a trombone and stood in front of a music stand and played a not so impressive few notes. Purposely, of course.

This is then followed by a Q and A with Witney, Emma, Sasha, Valentin and Mark. The latter brought up former dance partner Candice who was in the audience. She affectionately confessed that Mark was a pain in the butt to work with.

An unexpected moment was when they brought up three senior audience members to dance and then interview them.

They had them dance a second time to really show their stuff and this one senior, who was very spry, really shook his booty and had the audience and cast roaring with laughter.

Before closing out with some more dance routines, Mark, Dillon and Valentin performed some Latin music together on their instruments. These musical performances where a nice way to break up the show as well as Alfonso’s witty retort.

After a night of watching dance routines in Latin, jive, cha cha, rumba, and so forth, I was looking forward to watching the next season of the program with renewed enthusiasm. Nothing like seeing these dancers do their thing live. Do try to catch this event if you are near one. You won’t be disappointed.- Read the full story at UnRatedMagazine.com