Emma Slater who won the mirror ball trophy last season with Rashad Jennings is also confirmed to return for the next installment of 'Dancing with the Stars'.
- Aug 25, 2017
AceShowbiz - The pro dancers that will assists "Dancing with the Stars" contestants for the upcoming season 25 are revealed. Mark Ballas, Peta Murgatroyd, Valentin Chmerkovskiy and Maksim Chmerkovskiy are among the returning cast.
They are going to be joined in the next installment by familiar faces like Emma Slater, Lindsay Arnold, Witney Carson, Artem Chigvintsev, Keo Motsepe, Gleb Savchenko, Sharna Burgess and Alan Bersten.
It will be Ballas' first return to the ballroom after he skipped the last two seasons to perform on Broadway and prepare for his wedding. He came in second with Paige VanZant. They lost to Murgatroyd and Nyle DiMarco.
"There were aspects of it I missed," Ballas told PEOPLE about his return to the show, "like getting to be creative and using that part of my skill set and brain. I like coming up with my own material. Doing Broadway was amazing, but you're singing someone else's words and doing someone else's choreography and it's the same every night."
He added, "Here you get to do your own thing and change it up every week. It's been an insane year for [wife BC Jean] and I between getting married, Broadway and the national tour of Jersey Boys, and then our own tour and putting together our upcoming EP. But the timing really worked out."
It also marks Burke's first return to the show after she left to pursue other projects including "Dance Moms" and "Love on the Floor" tour which is put on hold until 2018. She last competed on "DWTS" with Ryan Lochte during season 23. They were eliminated on the seventh week.
The celebrities competing for the Mirror Ball trophy are expected to be announced soon. Female pro wrestler and "Total Divas" star Nikki Bella and "Property Brothers" stars Drew Scott and Jonathan Scott are rumored to join the reality dancing competition.
Last season, NFL star Rashad Jennings and Emma Slater were the winners, marking Slater's first win. Former MLB player David Ross and Lindsay Arnold were runner-up and Fifth Harmony singer Normani Kordei and Val Chmerkovskiy finished third.
"DWTS" will return for a new season on September 18.
