Six Degrees of Reality Dance Shows

I don't know much about dance, but based on my knowledge of reality shows, I can only assume that the dance world is very small. This might be surprising given the shear volume of dance shows on TV. 2008 has already seen at least a half dozen different reality competition shows exclusively about dancing, but the overlap and interconnectedness of talent in terms of judges, hosts and contestants is rather astounding.

This realization finally crystallized in my mind when I noticed that the new cast of Dancing with the Stars features three sets of related professional dancers. Alec Mazo and Edyta Sliwinska are husband and wife, Derek and Julianne Hough are siblings and new professional Corky Ballas is Mark Ballas' father. This alone should prove that the world of professional dancing is an incestuous endeavor, but there's so much more.

The Ballas-Hough families are often intermingled, as Mark and Julianne were dance partners before Mark teamed with both the Houghs to form a musical group called 2B1G. When that ended, Mark began another band, this one with Derek. None of this is surprising since Corky Ballas and his wife took care of the Houghs during their parents' divorce, meaning four of the pros on this season of Dancing with the Stars lived under a single roof. The Hough connections continued on Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli's show Dance War (hosted by DWTS winner Drew Lachey) which featured Zack Wilson, a former friend to Derek and romantic partner for Julianne.

Speaking of romantic entanglements, the pros on Dancing with the Stars often get linked to their celebrity partners. The most high profile was probably Karina Smirnoff and Mario Lopez, which ended in the tabloids earlier this year. This segues nicely into yet another dance show, as Lopez moved on to host America's Best Dance Crew on MTV. While we're on the subject of ex-DWTS stars' other dance projects, Ian Ziering moved on to host Lifetime's Your Mama Don't Dance while Melanie Brown became a guest judge on the premiere of Bravo's Step It Up and Dance.

But back to Mario Lopez, ABDC also features JC Chasez, who decided to judge rather than star on a dance show like his fellow *NSYNC members Joey Fatone and Lance Bass. While we know Justin Timberlake is too busy for this stuff because he has a real career, it makes you wonder why Chris Kirkpatrick is wasting his time on Mission: Man Band and Gone Country.

The America's Best Dance Crew judge connection extends to Shane Sparks, who defected as a frequent choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance to judge ABDC. Tabitha and Napoleon D'Umo went the other way, cutting their teeth on ABDC before working on SYTYCD in season 4.

So You Think You Can Dance provides us even more proof that dancers are a small group, because season 3 finalist Lacey Schwimmer was the sister of season 2 winner Benji Schwimmer. Bringing the world full circle, Lacey is now a professional for season 7 of Dancing with the Stars.

To conclude, Lacey Schwimmer was a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance, but now she's a professional on Dancing with the Stars where she's paired with Lance Bass, who was in *NSYNC with JC Chasez, who judges America's Best Dance Crew with Shane Sparks, who judged Lacey on So You Think You Can Dance. And this was all caused by the movie Footloose, which starred Kevin Bacon.