Season 34 of “Dancing With the Stars” is here, and its cast has welcomed a BYU student as well as three Utah natives.
“Dancing With the Stars” premiered Tuesday, Sept. 16, and welcomed BYU’s Hailey Bills as a member of the dance troupe, a group of four performers who appear between acts and as background dancers to the main performers.
Bills, who grew up in Frisco, Texas, has been dancing for 12 years and performed with the BYU Cougarettes during the 2024-25 season. She took to social media to share the news and her excitement to be on the show.
“Is life real? I can hardly even believe I can say I’m on the 'Dancing with the Stars' troupe for Season 34," Bills wrote on Instagram. "Still in complete utter shock. So much more to come, just so thankful and excited."
The dance troupe also features Carter Williams, Onye Stevenson and Jaxon Willard. Bills, Williams and Willard all trained at the Center Stage Performing Arts in Orem, Utah.
Pros from the show — Witney Carson, Ezra Sosa, Jenna Johnson, Brandon Armstrong and Rylee Arnold — are all Utah natives. The show also features Utah siblings Julianne Hough, a co-host, and Derek Hough, a judge and former pro.
This year’s season also features two Utah natives as stars: Jennifer Affleck, a Provo influencer and reality TV personality, and Whitney Leavitt, an influencer, reality TV personality and BYU alumna. Leavitt earned a dance degree from the university in 2018.
“Seeing all those people from 'Dancing with the Stars' being from Utah, a place where I'm from ... makes me want to get to that point,” Paloma Castillo, a BYU student and dance teacher, said.
Utah is known for training and sending dancers to the show. Isabella Mudrick, a BYU dancer, believes that Utah’s culture is the reason why so many Utah natives, as well as dancers who come to the state to train, end up on “Dancing With the Stars."
“I didn’t grow up training in Utah ... but in my experience, Utah’s social culture tends to emphasize the arts. I think developing talents and performance skills is really valued here, which lends itself to that popularity,” Mudrick said.