Dancing With The Stars pros Maks and Val Chmerkovskiy are hitting the road for their Stripped Down tour, which promises to be intimately... creative. Maks is a Latin Ballroom dance champion, choreographer, Broadway star, actor and producer. He made his Dancing With The Stars debut in ABC's hit show's second season. Since then, he has appeared on the series for 17 seasons and won the coveted Mirrorball Trophy in 2014 with Olympic ice dancer, Meryl Davis. Val on the other hand, is a 14-time US National Champion and two-time World Dance Champion. He rose to fame as a two-time winner of Dancing With The Stars.
This new tour comes after the professional dancing brothers were forced to cancel their highly anticipated Motion Pictures tour due to the global pandemic. While they had a lot of time to reflect at home, the Chmerkovskiy brothers reworked their set to better reflect our rapidly-changing world. According to their website, Stripped Down promises to be a "unique experience that will bring you closer to the boys than ever before; an intimate evening packed with breathtaking dancing, deeply personal storytelling, and world class showmanship true to the Chmerkovskiy name."
The brothers recently sat down with E! for its Backstage Pass series to discuss the real meaning behind the tour's name. "A lot of it is stripped down creatively, in the sense that it's a much more intimate experience," Val said. "It's just the two of us. We have two incredible female dancers coming with us, but it's a two-man show. It's an hour and a half of theatre, comedy, dance, spoken word. It's just a really feel-good evening and we feel really grateful that we're going to be the first act a lot of people are going to go out to theatre for."
While Val was in his feelings, he opened up about his love for collaborating with his brother. "I don't think we could bond beyond the bond we already have," he said. "It's just about strengthening that bond. To be able to collaborate with someone that has been my partner on stage for close to 30 years, it's crazy... At first, it was great to perform together. Then, it became a feeling of finding my own individuality and now it's come full circle where I realized how special it is to be able to share the stage with my brother." While he has the comfort of home on the road touring with his brother, this will be Val's first tour as a married man, an aspect of the show he admits has an impact on how much he can commit to. "It's just a much more important consideration now than ever because now there's another human involved in my life who I have to consider. That's saying it lightly," he said. "Hopefully, they're gonna be more humans in our life for both of us to consider and it changes your relationship with work." But if you ask his wife and Dancing With The Stars pro, Jenna Johnson, she's ecstatic her husband will finally get his moment on stage after a long year in quarantine. "Val's number one fans are some really hot, fierce grandmas so I'm all about it. They really love him," she said.
While those "fierce grandmas" might be disappointed that they won't be seeing the brothers physically stripping Magic Mike style, they can get excited for an evening that they'll definitely rate a perfect 10. Beyond just an excuse to get out of the house, those who watch Dancing With The Stars regularly, know these brothers are always up to something, so it's sure to be an entertaining night.
Source: E!