Jenna Johnson is shedding some light on why her Dancing With the Stars partner Harry Shum Jr. punctuated their “Viral Hits Night” routine with a dramatic scream.
“The scream that was heard around the world,” pro dancer Jenna 32, joked via Instagram on Wednesday, September 23. “The scream! The controversy!”
The duo may have made the biggest impression on viewers during “Viral Hits Night” on Tuesday, September 22, with their Viennese waltz set to “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls. In a climactic moment, Harry, 44, broke away from the dance to scream directly into the camera before Jenna pulled him back into their routine.
“Let me tell you why [that happened],” Jenna teased. “Obviously there were still 14 couples in the competition so our [intro video] packages were so short. Harry and I had discussed this beautiful meaning behind the piece. Unfortunately, there was just no time to show everything that we discussed throughout the week.”
Jenna explained that the dance was meant to be “so emotional” and showcase “so much yearning” between the pair.
“We had talked about both of our anxiety, how that makes us feel, this constant doubt, this pressure that we have on ourselves, not feeling like you belong,” she noted. “We just dove into the emotion of it all — what does it feel like when you’re about to break?”
The pro dancer told Harry that in moments of high anxiety that she often “just wants to scream.”
“Scream into a pillow. Scream in my car. When you’re at that point when everything is in your chest, the best way to release it is just breathing out and yelling,” she said.
In the rehearsal room, Jenna asked Harry if he’d be willing to “go crazy” with how they expressed anxiety throughout their Viennese waltz.
“He said, ‘Yeah, we should always go crazy,’” the pro recalled. “I just want to say, I’m so grateful for a partner who is down to do crazy things with me and that supports my ideas, my art and my creativity. [He] is willing to go there — the full visceral experience of his full-body scream was just, honestly, I think my favorite part.”
She added, “You either loved it or you hated it. Totally fine. But that was our art. That was our expression. Art is so subjective. It’s personal and it’s totally fine if you didn’t resonate with that. I hope that people who felt that emotion did [resonate with the scream].”
Jenna acknowledged that their video package “didn’t really explain the emotion” behind the scream because there simply was not enough time.
The couple’s Viennese waltz was a modest hit with judges Derek Hough, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli, who scored the routine 18 out of 30 total points.
Derek, 41, called the dance “beautiful” while Bruno, 70, felt it was a “great performance.” Carrie, 58, was less impressed, receiving boos from the studio audience for her harsher critique.
“The parts when you let go, you let go so far and you’re so amazing, and then when you’re back in hold you’re a little timid and you seem uncertain,” she told Harry. “If you can try to bridge that gap a little bit, I think that is what’s going to make it great.”
Dancing With the Stars airs on Disney+ and ABC Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
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