THE BALLROOM IS BACK! ‘DANCING WITH THE STARS’ CELEBRATES SEASON 35 WITH A SPECIAL TWO-NIGHT PREMIERE ON ABC AND DISNEY+

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“Premiere: Night One” and “Premiere: Night Two” – “Dancing with the Stars” returns for Season 35. Co-hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough, with Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough at the judges’ desk, the ballroom welcomes 16 new celebrities ready to take the floor for their first live performances.

Season 35 premieres TUESDAY, SEPT. 15, and continues WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 16 (8:00-10:03 p.m. EDT/PDT, 7:00-9:03 p.m. CDT), simulcast LIVE across both ABC and Disney+ in local time zones and next day on Hulu. The show is produced in front of a live audience by BBC Studios.

In a special two-night premiere, the male celebrities will take the ballroom floor on “Premiere: Night One,” each performing to a No. 1 song from the year they were born, with one male celebrity eliminated at the end of the night. On “Premiere: Night Two,” the female celebrities will make their competition debut, performing to a No. 1 song from the year they were born, with one female celebrity eliminated at the end of the night.

The couples (along with their dance styles and songs) are the following:

• Tatyana Ali with partner Jan Ravnik will perform a Jive to “Knock on Wood” by Amii Stewart
• Tyler Cameron with partner Sharna Burgess will perform a Tango to “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz
• Giada De Laurentiis with partner Alan Bersten will perform a Tango to “Venus” by Shocking Blue
• Jenna Dewan with partner Val Chmerkovskiy will perform a Tango to “Call Me” by Blondie
• Ezra Frech with partner Daniella Karagach will perform a Tango to “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson
• Amber Glenn with partner Pasha Pashkov will perform a Cha Cha to “Smooth” by Santana ft. Rob Thomas
• Taylor Hanson with partner Britt Stewart will perform a Quickstep to “Tell Her About It” by Billy Joel
• Maura Higgins with partner Mark Ballas will perform a Foxtrot to “Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles
• Conner Leavitt with partner Adele Zaikman will perform a Salsa to “Whoomp! There It Is” by Tag Team
• Ciara Miller with partner Brandon Armstrong will perform a Foxtrot to “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)” by Whitney Houston
• Sarah Jane Nader with partner Hailey Bills will perform a Jive to “Sk8er Boi” by Avril Lavigne
• Jackson Olson with partner Emma Slater will perform a Cha Cha to “Wannabe” by Spice Girls
• Guillermo Rodriguez with partner Witney Carson will perform a Cha Cha to “Mr. Big Stuff” by Jean Knight
• Harry Shum Jr. with partner Jenna Johnson will perform a Cha Cha to “Let’s Groove” by Earth, Wind & Fire
• Julia Stiles with partner Ezra Sosa will perform a Quickstep to “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton
• Connor Wood with partner Rylee Arnold will perform a Cha Cha to “I Like It, I Love It” by Tim McGraw

For the two-night season premiere event (Sept. 15 and 16, 2026), each couple will compete in only one of the two episodes (Tuesday OR Wednesday). Voting for each of those episodes will be open only for the couples who are competing in their respective episode: male celebrities on Tuesday and female celebrities on Wednesday. Fans will be able to vote during the live simulcast of the show in the EDT/CDT time zones. During this time, online voting will be available to fans in any time zone in the U.S., its territories and Canada via dwtsvote.abc.com, and fans on participating U.S. wireless carriers can also vote via SMS/text (fans in Canada cannot vote via SMS/text). Live viewer votes from each night will be combined with the judges’ scores each night to determine who may be in jeopardy of elimination on their respective night of competition.

“Dancing with the Stars” is the hit series co-hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough in which celebrities are paired with trained ballroom dancers to compete in themed choreographed dance routines that are judged by a panel of renowned ballroom experts, including Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough.

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