The latest episode of the official Dancing With the Stars podcast featured an interview with comedian Andy Richter and his partner Emma Slater. Andy’s explanation of how dancing has impacted his life was both deeply moving and inspirational.
As anyone who has watched this season already knows, Andy was not the most skilled celebrity. Yet he brought a personal charm and fresh energy that helped make this show more human than most seasons. As a dance teacher, I’ve really enjoyed watching his progress over the first eight weeks. You could see how he was starting to realize that it was not about technical precision but about enjoying the experience. About learning to discover what your body can do. About the beauty of two people creating a story through movement and music.
Earlier in the podcast, former Dancing With the Stars host Tom Bergeron talked about Andy’s impact. “I probably have a similar dance ability to Andy. So I felt very much a kindred spirit with Andy, and I thought he handled tonight so eloquently and with such grace.” he explained.
“Andy’s someone that is just special. He was the heart of the show. They called him the People’s Princess for a reason. And the moment when he opened his shirt, it was unbelievable.”
Tom continued by describing his feelings when he was to take to the floor right after Andy’s dance, saying he was thinking, “I don’t even want to go right now. I just want to take this in.”
Andy Richter on the impact of dance
When Andy and Emma sat down with host Joey Graziadei, we got a much more in-depth look at Andy’s experience on the show.
When asked if he ever thought he would get this far in the show, Andy explained that his expectations evolved over time. At first, he felt out of place and was thinking, “I hope I get out right away so I don’t have to do this anymore.”
But immediately that changed to, “Well, you know what? I’m probably not going to stick around long, but maybe I’d get through one elimination. That would be kind of nice and kind of fun.”
He quickly became invested in what they were doing, and progressed to, “I would like to stay for that next night.” And then it got to be, “I would like to stay for dedication night because my daughter was going to dance.” And so on.
As he spent more time on the dance floor, he just kept kind of putting the yard marker further and further. His own happiness as a participant grew, because he realized that he and Emma were giving people joy. “We were making people happy,” he shared. When people would criticize his dancing, he took the perspective that he was in a TV show where people get to pick what they liked, and would vote for what they wanted more of.
He explains, “And that’s what we were doing. We were just doing TikToks and we were dancing. There was no media plan. We were never like, ‘Well, this is how we can stick around.’ We just kept doing what we were doing.”
What I loved most was what he said next. He explained how dance touched his heart in a way that transformed his life. He said, “I kept falling in love with this process and falling in love with dance.”
“If you told me in July, ‘You’re going to fall in love with dance.’ I would have been like, ‘Please!’ But there is something really magical that happens when you dance. When you give yourself over to it and you kind of work at it and know what you’re doing. There’s something very magical.”
Everyone involved in dance knows this. My students have said similar things to me for years. I hope that this message resonates with people who have not yet allowed themselves to try dancing.
“There is something really magical that happens when you dance. When you give yourself over to it and you kind of work at it and know what you’re doing. There‘s something very magical.”
Andy goes on to say, “There‘s a reason we’ve been doing this as human beings forever. It’s crazy how you can really fall in love with it.” He continues by explaining how being on Dancing With the Stars was challenging physically but has empowered him to set new goals for his human journey. “It was just a joy to come do this very difficult thing that hurt, you know, a lot of the time.”
“There was a part of me that was kind of stuck,” he says. “And especially with physicality. I said yes to this because I knew it was forcing my hand. I just started doing this, and I started loving it, and I started walking around feeling buoyant. You know, I’ve ever felt buoyant. I’m going to continue not only to challenge myself in terms of doing things that I didn’t think I wanted to do.”
His reluctance to start something like dance was, as it is with so many people, caused by fear and insecurities. Now that he’s gone through this journey, he’s going to continue to challenge himself. He says that “In life, you kind of make a laundry list of things you’re going to do. And I’m in my late 50s and there were things on that list that I started to feel like, I don’t know if I’m going to get around to that. And I was heading towards dying disappointed, and a ballroom dance competition changed that for me.”
Pro Emma Slater also experiences Andy’s impact
The partnership between Emma and Andy was such a rich one that you could feel it. What I didn’t expect was when Emma described how this season of DWTS has changed her as much as it changed Andy. She explains, “I felt like a little part of me was stuck too. You know, it’s not just a job for me. I have been doing this my whole life, and I dance because I love it. And so sometimes I feel like life really happened to me, which is a beautiful thing and it’s the way it should be. But I also do get stuck.”
She goes on to say how Andy came into her life and gave her the opportunity to laugh in a fresh new way. “I’ve missed that,” she says. “I’ve missed that joy and that friendship. I’ve got the most amazing family, but they are back in England. And so it was just awesome to then have somebody who spoke just like a regular human and stripped everything back and nothing was fake and everything was just so real and genuine. And that’s what’s real in life.” I think we can all relate a little to that process of getting stuck and needing to find something to get us out of the rut.
She continues, saying, “I got stuck, but now I feel so inspired in just about every facet of life now. Unless you experience [the joy of learning to dance], you don’t understand how much this opens up your emotions.”
Those who follow my blog know that I like to write about the impact of dance, and how it changes your life to learn how to dance. But the eloquence of Andy Richter and Emma Slater in describing it takes this concept to a whole new level. I couldn’t think of a better way to explain how dance changes us. If you’re sitting on the fence, get to your nearest dance studio and get started. Just do it!
Watch the podcast
Watch Tom Bergeron and Andy and Emma in their interviews below.
The post Andy Richter exemplifies the life-changing power of dance first appeared on Delta.Dance.
