You can stop searching for the perfect Christmas present for your aunt: The Associated Press reports that Dancing With The Stars is launching a winter tour. The show that features professional dancers paired off with political commentators and YouTube personalities is mounting a 33-city adventure of vaguely recognizable faces performing vaguely adequate dance maneuvers, creatively titled “Dancing With The Stars: Live!” It all begins on Dec. 27 in Niagara Falls, a place whose symbolic image—of something continually spewing a deluge of froth while easily distracted Americans look on—seems a bit too on the nose. From there, the assemblage of thus-far mostly unannounced hoofers will shuffle and tango across the country, finally resting their broadcast-starved bones in Santa Rosa, California, on Feb. 12.
The show seems likely to be almost wholly composed of the professional dancers that staff the series, with Witney Carson and Mark Ballas being the first two names confirmed for the tour. (“Celebrity participants” are tantalizingly hinted at, no doubt dependent on Kate Gosselin’s current bank statement/desperation level.) The show also teases the exciting news that Ballas will “perform music from his new EP Kicking Clouds,” which will be a thrill for fans of music written by professional dancers on TV.
More names will be announced over the course of the show, now in its 19th season of lackadaisical shimmying. ABC would very much like you to go ahead and get advance tickets here, because who cares whether you like the eventual lineup of dancers or not. Dancing With The Stars airs on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
