Britt Stewart and Daniel Durant have had consistent success thus far on Dancing With The Stars, and we don’t expect them to slow down any time soon! Daniel is the third deaf contestant to compete on DWTS, and Britt has taken on the added challenge with a full heart and openness to learn, herself, which appears to be working week after week. “I do have to be intentional and I do have to be conscious about how I’m choreographing and how I’m teaching Daniel, but I have I have really high expectations for him and I know that he has high expectations for himself,” she explained in an EXCLUSIVE interview on the HollywoodLife Podcast.
Despite lower marks last Monday for Disney Night, Britt said that the judges’ criticisms are the pair’s “motivation” for this week. “Daniel was like, ‘I needed this.’ Not that he didn’t already have a lit fire underneath him, because he did. He wants this so bad,” Britt continued. The pro teaches her counterpart through visual learning, as well as explaining to him the “intricacies of the musicality and rhythm.” “He can feel the vibration of the tempo when the music plays, but he can’t feel the musicality, so we approach it in a few different ways,” she explained. “I like to do it visually so he can see what it is. For example, on Tuesday, we do the ChaCha, and there’s a step called the Cuban break. So, I will show him ‘One, two, and three, and four, and one,’ so I would visually do that. Then also, I do it on his chest too. So, I will sign what slow is and then what’s quick, and then he can feel what the rhythm is.”
While “no one is truly ever prepared for Dancing With The Stars,” Britt said she is impressed daily with Daniel’s commitment to the competition. “He wants to put his all into it and that requires a lot,” she noted. “He’s learning day by day and he’s just so excited about it.” The dancer also added that the CODA star has expressed to her his desire to continue to dance and implement a dance program for deaf children around the country. “He’s said that dance is therapy for him. He’s a mentor to a child that is deaf in Minnesota where he’s from, to help him in the school system, and now that he’s gotten a taste of this new expression, he wants to bring it to schools for the deaf and to kids that are deaf,” she explained.
“It’s so beautiful how aligned we are, because I have a nonprofit for BIPOC young dancers [Share The Movement], as well, and we’re going to get everyone to dance and make dance accessible to truly everyone,” Britt continued. “It’s also just so beautiful because Daniel is teaching me his language. I’m fulling diving into ASL and it’s coming pretty naturally to me. He’s teaching me in rehearsals and it’s just the most beautiful exchange of knowledge.”
Dancing With The Stars airs on Disney+ at 8 PM ET this week on Monday AND Tuesday for a special two night event! Tune in!