• The Covid-19 got the better of 

    Dancing with the Stars

     last year, but the show is back for its eleventh season.

  • This Friday, six candidates (out of a total of 13) will have to prove themselves during the first premium.

  • This new mechanic is part of a mountain of novelties.

We trot on the spot. We raise our knees. We link the heels to the buttocks. On the side of studio 217, the warm-ups should be going well. It has been two years since the

Dance with the Stars teams

set foot on the stage, the fault of a global pandemic preventing any reconciliation that ballroom dancing requires. In order to relaunch the format and once again attract the public to its position, TF1 intends to return to the fundamentals while increasing the stakes.

Authenticity, simplicity and rhythm, these are the three pillars on which the show will be based this year. “This is not a gala of celebrities who come to show themselves on TV and dance a little. It's a ballroom dance competition in which celebrities participate in the most honest way possible, ”warns Géry Leymergie, deputy managing director in charge of content at BBC Studios France. Who says competition, says good and bad points. The production therefore wants the public to understand who dances well or not, who has potential, who progresses over the weeks or who does not work. “It goes largely through a jury with simple sentences and it also involves dance choices that we can read, understand,” says Rémi Faure, director of flow programs for the TF1 group.

A legible and intense competition

The jury has been almost completely redesigned. Only Chris Marques retains his chair while Jean-Paul Gaultier, Denitsa Ikonomova and François Alu join the judges' table (which no longer exists, but that will be discussed below). "Our desire is to put the judges back at the heart of the program", summarizes Frédéric Pedraza, deputy managing director in charge of content at TF1 Production. All four will have more power thanks to two mechanics. The first materializes through buzzers available to them. During the first two bonuses, they can press it to send a couple (or more) directly to the next program, without going through the debrief and notes box. Clearly, this is a huge crush that is only possible if the four jurors press their button.

“I absolutely do not believe it, reacts Chris Marques, very cash about this novelty. How do you want I have a hard time pulling out a 7 on the first show, guys want me to drink! But these buzzers that the candidates will covet so much at the start of the season will quickly become their pet peeve. During the third and fourth premium, at a minimum, the positive object will become a negative object. If a juror presses the buzzer, it is a warning. If a star makes a mistake and three of the judges are not satisfied with the performance, the couple are directly sent face-to-face and risk elimination at the end of the evening. A system that Chris Marques might like more.

More power to the judges also means more responsibility when it comes to elimination. At the end of the show, three couples will face each other face-to-face. To begin with, the public will save one thanks to their votes, the jury will pick another and the third will be eliminated. As usual, at the time of the final, the choice of viewers will determine only the winner of the season.

Still in a desire for readability, there will also be changes to the animation.

Camille Combal remains the captain of the ship but Karine Ferri will no longer intervene during the bonus.

The host is relegated to the second part of the evening where she will manage, alone, the debrief of the show in an atmosphere that is intended to be more intimate.

“Camille and Karine each have their own tone.

It was to pay homage to them that there is really the tone of Camille during the prime time and the tone of Karine during a program, in the second part of the evening ”, indicated Rémi Faure.

A very young casting

Michou, Wejdene, Tayc… If these names don't mean anything to you, maybe you are over 30 years old. The youtuber, singer and singer are all part of a cast focused on the Web generation. Only Lââm and Dita Von Teese are over 40 years old. "What we try to do is a varied cast where each one complements the other, that there is no redundancy, that we have different personalities, different physique and different universes", Replies Rémi Faure of TF1 when asked if the season was designed with the desire to rejuvenate the cast.

The comedian Gérémy Crédeville, the actresses Lucie Lucas and Aurélie Pons, the actor Jean-Baptiste Maunier, the ex-candidate of

Koh-Lanta

Moussa, the singer Lola Dubini, the Miss France Vaimalama Chaves and the singer Bilal Hassani complete this casting.

“There may be something from generation 2.0 that really wants to do the show, which was perhaps not true five or six years ago with Norman and Cyprien, adds Camille Combal.

Today, they are the ones who are asking, they are hyper motivated to make the show ”, assures the host.

Thanks to such a panoply of personalities, ranging from influencers to singers of the 1990s, the channel hopes to bring the whole family together in front of its television set.

They dared to touch the signs!

An amplified power of judges, a rejuvenated cast, so many new features to which the public will get used to over the weeks. On the other hand, the production and the chain decided to insult fans of

Dance with the stars

by removing the signs of the notes that the jury has used to brandish at the end of each performance for ten years. But how the devil will the candidates know the sentence of Chris Marques, François Alu, Denitsa Ikonomova and Jean-Paul Gaultier? All four will press a button to send their note which will be displayed on a giant screen placed behind them. There will therefore be no spectators behind them on the stage.

If they remain in the same place as in previous seasons, the judges will no longer be gathered behind their usual table.

This year, the judges have a large chair "with something more open in front of them with a counter which will allow them to be more free", describes Frédéric Pedraza.

Karine Ferri is no longer part of the first part of the program, the "red room" disappears with her.

The dancers will therefore no longer have to cross the stage to obtain their notes.

This time, they will be given directly after the debrief of the judges alongside Camille Combal.

Finally forget the technical note and the artistic note, there will be only one overall rating.

At the end of the season, we will know if the public will give a zero point or a 10 to all these novelties.

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Bilal Hassani will dance with a man, a first in France in "Dance with the stars"

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  • Television

  • Jean paul Gaultier

  • TF1

  • Camille Combal

  • Dance with the stars