Carlos
PenaVega Reveals
His and Partner Witney’s Struggle
for the Semifinals Routine
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S21 Wk10
Last Monday proved to be one of Season 21 Cast
member Carlos PenaVega’s best
yet, as he and his Professional partner, Mirror Ball Champion Witney Carson, tied with Bindi & Derek at the top of
the show’s Week 10 Leader Board in an all out, desperate fight for the Finals.
With exceptional routines being exhibited throughout
the evening, such as their beautiful Contemporary,
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Carlos & Witney
DWTS Season 21, Week 10 -
Semi-Finals
|
rhythmic Cha-Cha, and
stellar Charleston Trio with eliminated Pro, Karina Smirnoff,
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Carlos & Witney
DWTS S21, Wk 10 - Trio Round
with Karina Smirnoff
|
the always talented and explosive,
high-scoring Team that is Carlos
& Witney may have made their Semifinals Ballroom Battles look easy,
but as Carlos later revealed,
such was not the case.
Following a tearful send off of his beloved wife, Alexa PenaVega, at the
conclusion of Week 09’s episode – an event which he would later describe as
being “brutal”
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Carlos PenaVega sheds tears over wife,
Alexa's, Elimination
DWTS - S21, Wk09 - Showstopper Night
|
– Carlos shared, via his people.com,
DWTS Blog, that the subsequent week
was all downhill from there!
“Every week, the person eliminated flies to New York
City after the show to do press.” Carlos wrote. “From the very beginning, I told Lex that if
she was eliminated first, I would fly there with her for support. We got on a plane that night and spent, like,
12 hours in the city before I got back and had to dive right into rehearsal …
Because I went to New York with Lex, I missed a day of rehearsal.”
“Witney and I have been talking about our
contemporary dance since day one.” The Nickelodeon
Star additionally noted, “Witney had this great concept that involved this
giant cube and a rope. We were really
excited about it; but, then we were told it wasn’t possible to do on the live
show.”
Hmmm, a “giant cube and a rope”, you say? That sounds oddly familiar, and while Carlos
has admirably elected a more discreet form of “Dish-ing”, this Blogger cannot
help but publicly wonder if maybe a certain #TeamCrikey had already beaten Carlos & Witney to the
proverbial punch!
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| Giant Cube ... |
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| ... and rope. |
“We let go of the idea of using a cube; but, Wednesday, Witney and I went in and really fought to use the rope and they
eventually figured out a way for us to do it” the relieved, former Big Time Rush member continued. “I’m really glad we’re getting to do Witney’s
vision …”
Adding on even more stress to the Week 10 Malay,
was, of course, Tamar Braxton’s
sudden and, some would say rude, mid-week exit from the show, about which
Carlos said, “My heart goes out to Tamar for having to quit the show … but it
is tough knowing that Lex could still be in this competition with me if Tamar
had quit before the end of Monday’s show.”
As the result of Tamar’s inconsideration, Season 21’s four remaining Couples
were sideswiped with the announcement of yet another performance being added on
to their Semifinals workloads.
“… the producers had to figure out how to fill that
extra time on the show. So on Thursday,
they call us in and told us that in addition to the two dances my partner
Witney Carson and I were already preparing, we now have to do a cha-cha
dance-off against Alek Skarlatos. Talk
about insanity. … Being told on Thursday
that we had to prepare for a dance-off threw everyone a loop. We had been planning to focus on just two
dances, so finding time to rehearse a third wasn’t easy. By Friday, we hadn’t even touched the
cha-cha.”
With an all-important, crucial bonus of 3 points
being added to every Dance-Off Winner’s Monday night score, the mounting
pressure of conceptualizing, choreographing, and learning a whole new dance
routine over the Weekend could not have been fun to deal with!
“But it did make me feel make me feel better after I
ran into Alek’s partner, Lindsay Arnold, that night; and she said they hadn’t had
time to rehearse their it [sic] yet either” added Carlos.
Of course, the week leading to the show’s highly
competitive Semifinals wasn’t all bad, as Carlos further expressed when
recalling his and Witney’s
Trio Charleston rehearsals with Season 13’s Mirror Ball Champion, Karina.
“After spending last week with Karina, I can
honestly say that if I hadn’t been partnered with Witney, she is the person I would have loved to have been
paired with. I mean, she’s crazy but
she is so much fun and has a great way of explaining things to me in a way that
I really understand.”
But the immaculate #TeamBrownSugar were not the only ones to experience Week 10
high and lows, as was made evident when 5-time Mirror Ball Champion Derek Hough revealed a most
unexpected (and unwelcomed!) surprise that had befallen his long-time best friend,
Mark Ballas.
Following Week 09’s well-deserved success of not one
but two perfect scores, Derek
took to writing on his tvguide.com
Blog to dish to fans about what kind of Semifinals effort they might expect
from Australia’s beloved Bindi Irwin.
“I can tell
you we are doing a salsa.” The 30-year-old Dance Instructor wrote. “We have a fun song that totally embodies
Bindi. The second one is a jazz trio
that’s much more artistic” he teased.
A delightful line-up to be sure, as we all witnessed
from last Monday’s Week 10 episode, but as a few more lines from Derek would
soon reveal, the week leading up to Bindi & Derek’s Semifinals high scores
was not all <Ahem> “Roses and Violets”!
“We’re doing it [the Jazz] with Mark,” Hough further wrote on Thursday,
“but I don’t know if that’s gonna happen anymore because he hurt his foot. He got glass or something in it.”
And he still PERFORMED
on Monday?! Good grief, Mark, talk about stamina!
“Between him and me,” Derek quipped, “it hasn’t been
a good two seasons for feet!”
(Derek is referring to his Season 20 upheaval with Nastia Liukin, when he injured
his foot and was forced to step aside and allow DWTS Troupe member Sasha
Farber to dance with his Celebrity partner for nearly the rest of the
Season, although Derek still choreographed all of the routines.)
“… Now I have to see if that’s possible to do it, so
we’ll see!” the veteran Pro concluded.
With a 2-part Finale on the horizon, Dancing With The Stars’ Four Finalists
are no doubt more anxious than ever, as they each prepare for one, last dancing
sprint over Season 21’s Finish Line and towards the show’s anticipated
bestowing of its glittering Mirror Ball Trophy!
