Six Degrees of Reality Dance Shows
From BuddyTV.com:
I don’t know much about dance, but based on my knowledge of reality shows, I can only assume that the dance world is very small. This might be surprising given the shear volume of dance shows on TV. 2008 has already seen at least a half dozen different reality competition shows exclusively about dancing, but the overlap and interconnectedness of talent in terms of judges, hosts and contestants is rather astounding.
This realization finally crystallized in my mind when I noticed that the new cast of Dancing with the Stars features three sets of related professional dancers. Alec Mazo and Edyta Sliwinska are husband and wife, Derek and Julianne Hough are siblings and new professional Corky Ballas is Mark Ballas‘ father. This alone should prove that the world of professional dancing is an incestuous endeavor, but there’s so much more.
The Ballas-Hough families are often intermingled, as Mark and Julianne were dance partners before Mark teamed with both the Houghs to form a musical group called 2B1G. When that ended, Mark began another band, this one with Derek. None of this is surprising since Corky Ballas and his wife took care of the Houghs during their parents’ divorce, meaning four of the pros on this season of Dancing with the Stars lived under a single roof. The Hough connections continued on Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli’s show Dance War (hosted by DWTS winner Drew Lachey) which featured Zack Wilson, a former friend to Derek and romantic partner for Julianne.