Las Vegas Weekly

December 29, 2008 · 8:30 AM

Morning Call: More drama for Lance Bass, Toni Braxton and Derek Hough as DWTS tour pulls into Vegas

By Robin Leach

Lance Bass and Lacey Schwimmer.

Photo: ABC TV

Both Lance Bass and Toni Braxton are soldiering on with injuries and pain after one of the Dancing With the Stars professionals was KO’d from the rest of the tour over the weekend -- just hours before arriving in Las Vegas.

For former Las Vegas Academy student Derek Hough, it was a double disappointment because the injury to Mark Ballas meant that their plans to debut their new Ballas-Hough rock group in Salt Lake City tomorrow went up in smoke. It was the first time for the DWTS tour to stop in Utah, where Derek was born, and he’d been hoping to show off the band to family and friends there. Plans to find an after-hours venue to preview the band here after tonight’s Orleans Arena production also were scrapped.

A stunned audience during this past weekend’s Los Angeles tour stop actually saw Mark writhe in pain from a pulled groin muscle, which forced him to stop dancing midway through the show. In Season 6 of the hit ABC series, Mark won the disco ball trophy with celebrity partner and Olympic figure skating gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi. He did not dance last night at the Phoenix stop and is now out for the remainder of the tour. He’s hoping to be well enough to return to the TV show when it starts airing new episodes March 3. The other professionals will take on his routines this evening.

Photo: ABC TV

Brooke Burke and Derek Hough.

Our hometown hero Derek, who won this season with celebrity partner Brooke Burke, also had been battling injury. He’d undergone Lasik eye surgery just five days before the tour started, cut his foot and also injured his shoulder. However, he decided to fight through the pain and discomfort and had been rehearsing with Ballas daily before and during the tour. They’d worked out for the DWTS choreography for six hours daily, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and then taken part in band rehearsals for another six hours till midnight. They’d played together on the four previous DWTS tours, but this year had a full band including singer-keyboardist Emily Grace, drummer Harry Sullivan and bassist Sam Marder in advance of their debut album release in March. Updated news on Mark and Derek can be seen at www.myspace.com/ballashoughtband.

The current tour’s lineup includes Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who reworked the choreography at Steve Wynn’s Le Reve production, and Vegas regular Karina Smirnoff, who was romantically linked with Mario Lopez earlier this year. Maksim also choreographed this new two-hour DWTS show featuring all-new dance routines. Also dancing tonight will be Lance Bass and his TV partner Lacey Schwimmer, who made it to this past season’s finals, and professional dancers Kym Johnson, Alec Mazo, Edyta Sliwinska, Fabien Sanchez and Cheryl Burke. In addition to Lance, our hometown singing queen Toni Braxton appears with Maurice Greene and actress Marlee Matlin. They perform against a backdrop duplicating the TV set, but have four singers and a 10-piece live band with Karina and Fabien as emcees for the show. Two giant video screens are used to display outtakes from the most recent season, along with candid, behind-the-scenes interviews and never-before-seen rehearsals.

Photo: ABC TV

Toni Braxton and Alec Mazo dancing in dramatic fashion.

Local singing queen Toni has bravely fought medical problems in the past months. She was forced into a six-month hiatus from her Flamingo headliner Strip show after being hospitalized twice with heart muscle problems, and then was unable to appear on the season finale because of an operation for the removal of a breast cyst she’d delayed undergoing while still competing on the show. Toni vowed to be well enough for this current tour and has been under doctor’s orders not to overdo it.

When I chatted with Lance less than a month ago during his quick visit to Paris Las Vegas here, he told me: “I never expected this to take such a toll on my body. It’s thrilling, but at the same time I’ve hurt my feet and experienced injury and pain in body parts I never knew I had. It hurt more than the training I underwent when I successfully passed cosmonaut training.” He explained that after the finals of Season 7 and the promotional tour that immediately followed, he had only two free days before two weeks of rehearsals began for this tour: “I never got a chance to heal or get well. The show came together very quickly, but it’s far more work than the TV version.

“We’re even rehearsing backstage in the arenas once we arrive in the next city. The professional dancers get to do incredible routines that weren’t possible on the regular show. We have many more costume changes. Some of us are in as many as 14 different dance routines with a costume change for each. The dancing is great -- and totally over the top. No wonder we all sleep so well on the tour buses!”

Photo: Scott Doctor/www.greatscottstudios.com

Lance Bass poses at an easily recognizable Strip resort visage.

After tonight’s Vegas stop, Lance plays the Salt Lake City stop and then flies right back here to celebrate New Year’s Eve at Prive nightclub with reality TV actress Denise Richards in Planet Hollywood. Then Friday he rejoins the tour in Tulsa, Okla., and remains with it through the closing date of Feb. 8 in Philadelphia. He then returns to Hollywood to work on a new pilot and three other TV shows in development while the pro dancers have four weeks of working with the new cast of Season 8, which starts broadcasting the first week of March!

The new celebrity contestants have not yet been announced, although our Flamingo headliner Donny Osmond has revealed to Vegas DeLuxe that he’s been taking lessons in the event that he signs on for the new season.

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