I'll Never Change My Name

by Valentin Chmerkovskiy

  I was always tired. I’d ask to go to the bathroom just to get a break from the lesson, several times literally falling asleep on the toilet. “Hey, hey,” Yulia or Victor would call in to me. “Are you all right?”

  Eventually, after I had worked with her for a year, Yulia invited me to play at the recitals she hosted at her apartment for three or four students and an audience of their parents. The monthly events offered me a chance to be a performer again. My green room might have been Yulia’s tiny six-foot-by-six-foot kitchen, but stepping out from it still meant going onstage, grandly entering her living room, another small space crowded with damask-covered couches and leather easy chairs.

  I had to exercise my ability to rise to the occasion, to appear in front of people and be able to pull through in the clutch. In that cramped little apartment with the odor of Russian food in the air, I first learned how to steel my nerves for performance.

  Then Victor started tutoring me in Russian literature. On those days I would take two-hour lessons with Yulia and then spend an extra hour with Victor, three times a week. Victor introduced me to Pushkin, Nabokov, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. I sure wasn’t reading anything like that in elementary school. I don’t think I formally encountered Dostoevsky in English translation until years later, in high school.

  This introduction of serious literature at such a young age, with analysis and explication demanded of me, helped develop new ways of thinking and expressing myself. The mash-up of classic Russian literature with the new sounds of hip-hop shaped me, giving me a unique perspective overall. I listened to Nas chronicle his life journey in Queensbridge at the same time I was reading about Pushkin in St. Petersburg. The two worldviews collided to make me who I was, something I’m incredibly grateful for to this day.

  Victor favored a real Russian-style education, which meant plenty of memorization. I not only had to read poetry but learned to memorize and recite it, too. It was an old-world practice, since in American public school teachers never had us memorize any literature at all. For Yulia’s recitals I had to learn by heart an entire Bach prelude, and then for Victor I had to memorize and recite passages from Yefheny by Pushkin.

  These two wise, gentle, educated people changed my life. Yulia was one of those artists who preached the value of music over all other activities in life.

  “Why are you dancing, young man?” she would demand of me. To my parents, she said, “Why does he need this dancing? He has the opportunity to be a soloist. Do you know what that means? There are only so many people in the whole world who make their living as violin soloists. There’s Itzhak Perlman and there was Jascha Heifetz and—well, I can count them on the fingers of one hand! Valya could be that good. He has that type of potential.”

  But life had different plans for me.

  Part 3

  A Journey in Dance

  Zendaya

  In joining Dancing with the Stars, I had moved away from the competition world with the idea of enjoying the realm of Hollywood creativity, but my past kept catching up with me. I found myself immersed into the same intrigue, encountering the same faces, dealing with the same disappointments. The only thing that had changed was the set.

  In my fourth season on the show I came within a hairbreadth of winning it all, but lost instead to one of my biggest rivals, Derek Hough. The defeat was difficult for me, as devastating as an earlier defeat in a ballroom dance competition at Blackpool, where I lost by a single mark to another longtime rival of mine, Mark Ballas.

  I had often competed against Derek and Mark on the ballroom competition circuit. The universe then saw fit to play one of its little pranks, bringing both of these characters back into my life on Dancing with the Stars, where they turned up again like zombies back from the dead and quickly became fan favorites.

  Do you know how many Derek Houghs I’ve gone through in my life? I’ve always liked to be tested against the best. More than that, I’ve absolutely loved to beat the best. Great rivals make for great competition. My mentality has always been, “How many spins can the champion Nino Langella do? Five?” Then I wanted to do six. I had to do six. If you want to be a great competitor, you have to be the best at what you do, and surpass what your competition does best, too.

  That spring of 2013 I was happy to get the “Joe and Ashley” call, inviting me back for Season 16.

  “This season’s going to be a little different for you,” Ashley promised.

  “Awesome, thanks,” I responded, intrigued and excited.

  On the same day I was supposed to meet my partner, I flew into Los Angeles from the East Coast, landed, and grabbed a cab. I gave the driver the address Joe and Ashley had given me, which was located somewhere in downtown L.A. That was strange to begin with, because almost everyone on the show lived in the Hollywood Hills. It was like a thing with Dancing with the Stars people. West Hollywood especially was our turf. So why was I headed downtown?

  On the ride from the airport, my phone lit up with texts. The dancers were gossiping and speculating about partners, texting back and forth like crazy. Everyone wanted to weigh in.

  “Models live downtown,” Maks texted. “You probably have a model.”

  “Bro, I already had a model, Elisabetta Canalis, and look how that turned out.”

  Models were as a rule tall drinks of water, which was fine on the runway but problematic on the parquet.

  “She can’t be taller than the frame,” I texted. This was part of that ongoing discussion Maks and I had, about the male dancer acting as the picture frame and the female partner being the work of art.

  “Bro, she’s going to be taller than you,” Maks texted, ever the optimist. “You’ll just have to get creative.”

  I was coming off the season with Kelly Monaco, who was maybe five four in heels. On TV, height and everything else was relative. You could be six feet tall, but if you were standing next to Kareem Abdul Jabbar, you’d look like a leprechaun. Likewise, you could be five six, but next to someone four ten, you’d look like a beast. I listed my height as five eleven but that was on a really good day, if I had my high-tops on, if the humidity levels were just right, if my body somehow stretched.

  It was a sunny morning in downtown L.A. The cab pulled up to the address and I got out, feeling as though I was reenacting Will Smith’s performance in the title sequence of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In top form coming off the midseason break, I was inspired, too, after making the finals with Kelly. Now for the follow-up, I told myself, ready to take home the Mirrorball trophy.

  I paid the taxi driver and he drove off. I knew the cabbie had left me on the correct corner, but I had no idea where the actual building was, so when I saw a thirty-something woman crossing the street near me, I asked her for help. She was very noticeable because she was very tall.

  “Excuse me, do you know where this address is?”

  As I spoke to her, a younger girl, almost as tall, came out of a nearby building, walking alongside a big dude with dreds.

  Later on, knowing Zendaya, I became really familiar with how she walked. She barely dragged herself from point A to point B. I’ve noticed that professional athletes tend to display that slow-moving roll, too. The girl was probably just tired, because since a very young age she had worked multiple jobs, doing Disney shows, getting her music career off the ground, and acting in movies. She slouched up to the corner with her pops just as I was finishing my question, and I discovered that the tall lady was Claire, Zendaya’s mother.

  “We’re actually going to the same place,” she said. “Just follow us.”

  The vibe was casual and slightly mysterious. I hadn’t yet snapped to who they were. We headed inside and tried not to stare at each other while waiting for the elevator. We rode up to the second floor, the door opened, and the show’s field producer greeted us there.

  “Oh, you guys have met already?”

  I was still a little slow on the uptake. “Huh? What?”

  “Oh, so you’re my partner,” Zendaya sa
id. I wasn’t entirely caught up on my Disney show binge watching, so I didn’t immediately recognize who she was.

  While the sound techs were bustling around getting the microphones in place, I told this pleasant looking, very tall young lady that it was nice to meet her.

  “Oh yeah, hi, I’m Zendaya.”

  I shook hands with her father, Kazembe, and chuckled along with Claire about how we met before meeting. I always take on the role of host and assistant to the producer, small-talking the families, helping to create a lighthearted atmosphere around the shoots. Once I felt that sort of vibe had been established, I stepped aside and called Deena Katz, the show’s casting producer.

  “Hey, Deena, do you know how tall I am?” I asked her, keeping my voice low.

  “Yeah, you’re like six feet one.”

  “On my Wikipedia bio, Deena, if you Google me, it’ll say that I’m six feet tall. On Google I’m six feet tall, but in real life, I’m not six fucking feet tall.” Lying on your résumé can sometimes backfire.

  “Oh, you’ll still be good,” Deena assured me.

  “Damn, plus she’s like, what, sixteen years old?”

  She sighed. “What’s the problem now?”

  “I’ve just had my best season on Dancing with the Stars partnered with a five-four thirty-six-year-old, and so the next season you follow that up with a sixteen-year-old who’s six five? What are you trying to do to me, give me whiplash?”

  “Oh, she’s not six five, Val, not anywhere near,” Deena said. She was very well accustomed to diva fits.

  “Have you seen her parents?” I glanced over to the family. Claire had to be six six and Kazembe, Zendaya’s father, stood at least six four.

  The most important fact for me about the previous season, besides my friendship with Kelly, was that I finally got to experience the entire run of the show. I gained insight about what it takes, how to pace it, what mistakes I made in the past, what things I did right. It was easy to second-guess. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that dance at the beginning, it would have been better at the end. Maybe I shouldn’t have done all my best moves in week four.

  But at least I ran the entire race, so I now knew how it could be run, how to ace the course, where before I had only seen it from the sidelines, which was not the same. I knew what to expect, and felt primed and ready to get started. So what if I drew a teenage Amazonian as my partner? I would just have to get creative, as Maks had suggested.

  Dancing with the Stars came loaded down with intrigue and drama that on sheer principle I didn’t want any part of, and which largely centered on who got what partner. A casual watcher of the show might see nothing except a huge happy family. But a few fans like to play up rivalries, even some that aren’t there. It all became a spectator sport for the committed home viewer: keeping tabs on who was siding with whom, where the fault lines were, what was going down behind the scenes.

  My impulse was always to set the record straight, and tell folks that I wasn’t a member of any faction. I sided with me, I sided with reason, I sided with loyalty, I sided with positivity. I felt as though there needed to be a healthy, arm’s-reach separation between me and all the back chatter. I didn’t want other people’s intrigue to influence my process or my relationship with the show.

  The commentary on the discussion boards was insistent. “Why does this one guy always get assigned to the most awesome partners?” Inquiring minds wanted to know, and they weren’t talking about me. But I didn’t care about which guy had what partner. Why? You want me to keep it real? Because all the dancers on the show are awesome, that’s why. This amazing pro rival of mine might keep getting amazing partners, but I wasn’t going to bother myself with the injustice of the world. My response was more along the lines of “Hey, how can I become awesome, too, so I too can get awesome partners every time?”

  The real fans of the show will understand exactly what I’m talking about, and hopefully I can satisfy their worries about animosity or friendships, cliques or outsiders. Never assume that there was any hatred or dislike on my part, because I can assure you that there was none. Don’t mistake my indifference to the show’s melodramatic subplots for a negative attitude. I just tried not to pay that business any mind, because involving myself in it turned out not to be a healthy choice for me.

  The notion of adjusting to a role and really committing to a role held true no matter what the show threw at me. From the perfect grown-ass woman in Kelly Monaco I had to transition to a 16-year-old Disney star, Zendaya. My range was truly being tested, both as a teacher and a dancer. I couldn’t imagine any two partners more different. Who was going to be next? Betty White?

  “Hi, I’m Val,” I said to my new partner.

  “Zendaya,” she said.

  “Yeah, Zendaya, this is going to be a lot of fun.”

  “Cool,” she said. “You know, we all watch the show.” She pointed to her moms and pops. “I’m on this series, Shake It Up.”

  “All right, cool, a Disney show, right? How old are you?” I just wanted to make sure.

  “Sixteen.”

  “Oh, sixteen? Okay. Let’s get started. Why do you want to learn ballroom?”

  We didn’t do too much dancing that afternoon, just a little talking and then a few basic steps. The cameras shut down after they got whatever they needed, and I had an informal conversation with her parents. They had done their research, and they had seen my season with Kelly.

  “You have a contemporary for week one?” Claire asked. “I saw your contemporary last season.”

  She used a casual, smiling tone, but I almost winced at the reference to my contemporary dance with Kelly, which had emphasized adult romance and heated passion.

  “Well, we’re going to have a different type of contemporary, Claire, I promise.”

  In the car heading back from the meeting, I thought over my predicament. How was I supposed to transition to teaching a Disney princess after an ex–Playboy Playmate turned soap star? My role on the show had developed into this sex symbol, and suddenly all that business felt totally out of context. Beyond that, it was borderline creepy for an adult my age to act in that way with a young lady like Zendaya.

  I immediately understood that I had to rethink my entire approach. Luckily I knew what viewers might not have realized, that the sex symbol business had been largely a creation of the producers. Sure, they had a little help from me, but basically being a player was foreign to my nature. My natural approach to other people in general and women in particular had been trained into me by my parents, a polite, chivalrous attitude that represented a deeply felt cultural inheritance. If I’m courteous and warm, I’m not trying to be a smooth operator, but rather simply behaving how my mother raised me.

  The role of mentor and teacher was much closer to my heart than the role of badass stud, which I had always considered pretty ridiculous even when I was playing at it. During my time at Rising Stars Dance Academy, I had interacted with many, many Zendayas before, teaching kids and functioning as a role model. Those close to me understood that it was a much more authentic side of me than Val the Lady-Killer would ever be.

  I recalled Kelly’s advice, Know your audience. I realized that the upcoming season would not be about creating as much as about educating and mentoring. I was paired up not only with a celebrity, but first and foremost with a young woman, a young girl, who obviously had potential and obviously had heart.

  The presence of Claire and Kazembe in the mix would also be different from the last season. The two of them had looked me in the eye and tried to gauge what kind of influence I would have on their daughter. All of a sudden it was as if I was in the middle of a parent-teacher conference. But that situation also was something I was used to from Rising Stars. I had witnessed stage moms and dads who helped the process, and those who interfered to the point of sabotaging it. The lessons I learned back in New Jersey transferred to my work on Dancing with the Stars. I knew I had to enlist Zendaya’s parents as allies.


  As we started working together, I soon realized that Zendaya Maree Coleman had a beautiful perspective on the situation and definitely a mind of her own. Her intelligence turned out to be what I responded to the most about her. Because we both appreciated each other’s wit and vibe, we were able not just to get along, but to build a real friendship based on respect, family, and love.

  Sure, Zendaya was sixteen and I was twenty-seven, but it seemed like only yesterday when I was sixteen. I hadn’t been just a dancer back then, because at sixteen I was still playing violin and traveling around the world. I might not have starred in a number one Disney show, but I was the number one young ballroom dancer in the world.

  I found that I could tap into my previous experiences when teaching this particular sixteen-year-old girl, because I knew how to have a conversation with her. I was still down with hip-hop and familiar with the progressive political scene. I was from Brooklyn and she was from Oakland, both places with intense urban cultures.

  When the show announced we would be partners, the comments on social media emphasized the discomfort some people had with the whole idea. They knew me as this racy younger brother guy who took his shirt off at the drop of a hat, and who last season didn’t stop there.

  “He stripped his pants off right on TV!” ran the commentary. “That’s so weird. What is he going to do with a teenage girl?”

  People wondered how it was going to work. Well, haters, I thought, silently responding to the negative comments, you’ll find out. And you know what? You’re weird for even letting those kinds of thoughts cross your mind.

  I knew from my work at Rising Stars that it was often uncomfortable when parents attended a rehearsal, but that season I wasn’t shy about it at all. Claire and Kazembe had an open invitation. Come on ahead, I thought, come and see how caring I am about the welfare of your child, how much I want for her this season on Dancing with the Stars. Come witness the process, because it’s amazing.