<\/p>\n
\n\tMark Ballas<\/a> is not a gatekeeper. That\u2019s why, just in the last year, he\u2019s lent his talents to two Emmy-nominated television shows<\/a> and uplifted Chicago<\/a> to new box office heights<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAnd now, he\u2019s claiming his spot on the judging panel of the mint Dancing With the Stars<\/a> spinoff<\/a> The Next Pro<\/a>, which will find the main show\u2019s next professional dancer to join the season 35 cast<\/a> this fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI like to serve. I like to help,\u201d Ballas tells The Hollywood Reporter at the Next Pro premiere watch party in Hollywood Monday night. \u201cI like to give advice where I can if people want it. I\u2019m not a gatekeeper.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBallas has been a part of the Dancing With the Stars family since 2007, when he joined the cast as a pro dancer for season five. Since then, he has remained a fixture of the franchise, earning an Emmy nomination in 2011 and winning three Mirrorball Trophies. He is the second-most winning<\/a> pro from the show, second only to main Dancing judge Derek Hough<\/a> and tied with Val Chemerinsky.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTo be blunt, Ballas more than has the prerequisites needed of him to judge Next Pro (notably alongside his mother, ballroom dance<\/a> world legend Shirley Ballas). He hopes his extensive experience with Dancing, having just come out of a fruitful 34th season when the spinoff was filmed, lends itself to the aspiring pros.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat is fun for the contestants, I hope, is that they have a pro on the panel that\u2019s active, that\u2019s staying. All our rotating pros [that serve as guest judges] are current [Dancing pros] too, but I\u2019m the anchor of active pros,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I\u2019m coming at it from a place like, hey, I\u2019m still out there with you. I get it. I just did last season, and I\u2019ve done this 21 times, so my feedback is always from a place of love.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBallas says his history with the show is exactly what he would hope for in a judge if the roles were reversed.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIf I was competing, I would wanna hear from someone that\u2019s done it over and over again, so I can pick up any tidbits,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause even after 21 seasons, I\u2019m still learning. But every situation you get into, it\u2019s not one glove fits all; you have to be adaptable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAnd that\u2019s exactly what the Ballas\u2019 and the weekly guest judges are looking for in Next Pro contestants: adaptability. \u201cYou can dance? Great. You can choreograph? Great. You can look great, you can have the personality, but can you be adaptable? That\u2019s the secret sauce.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe Next Pro premiered on Monday night, but the show itself was filmed during a rather busy period for Ballas. He shot season four of The Traitors<\/a> in May-June of 2025; partook in season 34 of Dancing alongside Whitney Leavitt from September through November; took a brief period off for the holidays; shot the Next Pro in March 2026; and joined Leavitt on Broadway<\/a> for Chicago in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAnd on Tuesday, he flew back to New York to prepare for his return to Chicago. It\u2019s been fun, he says, but it\u2019s also been a lot.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been fun. It\u2019s been a lot. I\u2019m very grateful and blessed. Traitors is one of my favorite shows and obviously Dancing is one of my favorite shows,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd be a part of Next Pro, something to help young talent; you know, that\u2019s where I\u2019m at\u2026 I\u2019m always happy to share how this works, so very honored that they chose me [to judge Next Pro].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe winner of Next Pro has already been decided, showrunner Conrad Green confirmed<\/a> this April, which means the winner will immediately join the recurring Dancing cast, kicking off their first season as a pro this fall. When it comes to taking on the live show and teaching a celebrity the mechanics of ballroom dance, Ballas urges the winner to be open-minded and flexible, while remembering to put their partner first.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cTake in every bit of advice you can from those around you, and remember that even though you\u2019re a massive part of the journey, the secret sauce is that you are serving your celebrity,\u201d Ballas says. \u201cIt\u2019s their journey. Of course it\u2019s your journey as a team, but I feel like the most successful pros understand that it\u2019s for them, and at the end of the day, the [celebrities] gotta look good.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs a permanent judge of the Dancing spinoff, Ballas confirms this does not deter him from appearing on season 35 as a pro dancer, and that he\u2019s \u201copen\u201d to another return.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think they\u2019re two different contexts. I mean, I\u2019m definitely open. As you know, we\u2019re still finalizing casts and making announcements,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYeah, I\u2019m open. We\u2019ll see, you know. We\u2019ll see,\u201d Ballas adds. \u201cI\u2019ll wait to see what our amazing casting director [Deena Katz<\/a>] decides to do, but she knows where to find me. She\u2019s the best for a reason.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tDancing With the Stars: The Next Pro<\/a> airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on ABC<\/a>, with episodes available to stream Tuesdays on Disney+ and Hulu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hollywoodreporter.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mark Ballas is not a gatekeeper. That\u2019s why, just in the last year, he\u2019s lent his talents to two Emmy-nominated television shows and uplifted Chicago to new box office heights.\u00a0 And now, he\u2019s claiming his spot on the judging panel of the mint Dancing With the Stars spinoff The Next Pro, which will find the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2505527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[24120,344468,308694,21937,41508,471486,344314,24122,206198],"class_list":["post-2505526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-abc","tag-broadway","tag-chicago","tag-dance","tag-dancing-with-the-stars","tag-dancing-with-the-stars-the-next-pro","tag-mark-ballas","tag-reality-tv","tag-the-traitors"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Dancing-With-the-Stars-Mark-Ballas-on-Judging-Next-Pro.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2505526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2505528,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2505526\/revisions\/2505528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2505527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2505526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2505526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2505526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}