A Week In The Life Of A Dancing With The Stars Pro: Witney Carson Walks Us Through Rehearsals, Costume Fittings, And The Crucial Spray Tans

Sixteen amateur partners. Two Mirrorball trophies. Hundreds of dance routines. Thousands of rehearsal hours. And, by our rough estimate, trillions of teeny, tiny costume rhinestones.

That about sums up Witney Carson's time as a veteran "Dancing With the Stars" pro. With the current 35th season included, Carson has competed on the ABC series 16 times since she joined the pro roster in 2014, making her the perfect person to tell us what it's really like behind the scenes as a professional partner.

This time around, Carson — who's coming off last season's Mirrorball victory with Robert Irwin — is dancing with "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez, and she's perfectly aware that he doesn't have Irwin's dance chops. But that doesn't change the creative process that she's brought to every "Dancing" season thus far. (She might even be more disciplined in this cycle, since she's competing while pregnant with her third child.)

"Each season, I'm learning something new about how to teach and how to bring out the best in [my partners]," Carson tells TVLine. "I don't know how to not do my absolute best. ... There's going to be no difference [in work ethic] from last season to this season. It'll just look a lot different, but for me, the approach is the same, in terms of how much dedication and heart I'm putting into it."

In fact, based on what Carson tells us here, "Dancing" pros need a whole lot of dedication to make it through just one week of the competition, let alone an entire demanding season. Below, she pulls back the curtain on an average week in a "Dancing" pro's life while the show is in production, and we'll warn you: Your feet are going to hurt just thinking about it.

Well before the home audience sees a single step danced on live television, the pros meet their celebrity partners and spend time feeling out each celeb's dance skill. The pairs won't know their first dance style right away, though, making it hard for pros to bank much choreography ahead of the season.

WITNEY CARSON | We usually start with our partner about two weeks before the premiere. Usually, you'll get your partner, and you won't know your Week 1 dance style until maybe the fourth or fifth day of rehearsals, so you're really just trying to gauge what they can do, what they can't do, building a connection, all that stuff.

Pairs are then assigned their Week 1 style, along with the song to which they'll perform.

CARSON | The first week, music is usually assigned to us. We don't usually have much of a say that first week. It's usually something the celebrities have already talked to the music team about. We have an incredible music team, and they're very collaborative in what we really want to dance to, but there's a lot of factors that play into it. A lot of people don't know this, but you have to go through hoops and all sorts of things to get certain music [legally] cleared [for use on the show], and a lot of the time, our first choices don't get cleared. We have to go to our second or third choice. 

For me, as the choreographer, the music is everything. Does it fit the celebrity? Would I want to choreograph to it? Do I like dancing to it? And then we also have theme weeks, so in those first few weeks [of the season], we slowly learn what styles we'll be doing and potentially what tracks we'll be doing, as well. You have to work within the theme weeks that the producers give.

Once the pros learn their first styles and songs, they come up with choreography and begin to teach their celebrity the steps. But the days leading up to a new "Dancing" season are packed with other commitments, too.

CARSON | We also have to go to "Good Morning America" [for the cast reveal], and that takes up about three days. ["GMA" is based in New York City, while "DWTS" takes place in Los Angeles.] We also have a [pre-taped] holiday episode, which takes up a lot of that rehearsal time, as well. We also have pro rehearsal on top of our celebrity rehearsals. This morning, for instance, we had [pro rehearsal from] 7 to 11 a.m., and we'll have those once or twice a week during the season.

The rest of the week, we only are allowed three hours a day [to rehearse with our celebrities], and then it gets to four hours, and then by about the quarterfinals, it's an unlimited amount of hours. That's when you can rehearse day and night if you want to, but that's when it gets tricky because they start adding more numbers, and you also have your opening and sometimes closing numbers. So, lots of dance. [Laughs] We eat, breathe, live dance.

In the "Dancing With the Stars" world, a new week really starts on Wednesday, the day after a live broadcast of the show — and Wednesdays can be rough.

WITNEY CARSON | Wednesdays, I always say, are bad days. [Laughs] You're coming off the adrenaline [of the live show on Tuesday night], you're extremely tired, the celebrity's extremely tired. They're having to learn a completely new dance which, most of the time, is a whole different language. Forget everything that you did the last few weeks. Forget everything. You're now learning a totally new dance. So Wednesdays are a little bit rough with our bodies and our minds, but it's always best just to try and get as much choreography as possible [rehearsed] on Wednesdays.

Per Carson, by the time Wednesday arrives, the pros have already been choreographing their next routines for several days and "should know the routine, or at least have an idea of what we want to do" by the time they hit the rehearsal room for a fresh week.

CARSON | Each day is so precious, and each hour is so precious. ... Thursday, it looks about the same. Just going over the routine, trying to get it to music, if possible, so [the celebrity] can get a head start on hearing what they're going to be dancing to.

Although the pros' rehearsals with their partners continue all week long, other obligations start to fill the schedule as another new episode nears.

WITNEY CARSON | Friday is usually pro rehearsal from 7 to 11 a.m. [for opening numbers and other routines], and then you have your couples' rehearsal after that. We also have some costume fittings around Friday and Saturday. We're trying on for opening numbers, and we're also designing and creating [costumes] for the following Tuesday. Saturday, we have more rehearsal. Sunday, we have more rehearsal.

Want to know more about the costume creation process at "Dancing With the Stars"? Press play on our full interview above with costume designers Steven Lee and Daniela Gschwendtner, who walk us through the planning and execution of the show's wardrobe (and look back on some favorite and least favorite looks through the years).

On Mondays, the couples head to the "Dancing With the Stars" ballroom in Los Angeles' Fairfax District for a day of camera blocking — mapping out where the cameras and camera operators will stand during all of the live episode's many performances. Not only are individual routines and the opening number practiced on Monday, but so is the walkdown that happens at the top of every broadcast, making Monday "a really, really long day," Witney Carson says.

CARSON | When you see the couples come down [the stairs] and we say, "Hey, it's me and Guillermo, vote for us," you have to block all of that. That takes a lot of time. It's a lot of standing, waiting, dancing if we're in the opening number. And on our camera-blocking day, we usually do three to four passes [of the celebrities' routines], and those are usually back-to-back. Then we try to get in rehearsal after camera blocking, because it's the day before the show, and everyone wants to get those last few hours in. And then spray tan, of course. [Laughs] You have to get the spray tan.

Monday might be a long day for the pros, but Tuesday — the day of the live show — is easily the longest day of the week. Female pros and contestants arrive at the ballroom around 6:30 a.m. to start getting their hair and makeup done, and the broadcast gets underway at 5 p.m. In the intervening hours, there's much to be done, starting with rehearsal with the house band. 

WITNEY CARSON | The band will start [rehearsing with] the very first couple early in the morning. Sometimes you have to dance at 7 a.m., and that's the first time you hear the live band. You've been practicing to a track the whole week. Usually they'll get you the band reference — which isn't fully mixed yet — around Saturday, and you can finally hear the final version on Monday, which is camera-blocking day. But sometimes, the pros have to fix some things [once you rehearse with the band], because you can't really hear musical cues that you've heard in rehearsal all week, and those are really important. So [Tuesday morning] is your chance to talk with the band and make sure all of those musical cues are lined up the way you rehearsed it during the week. We get about two passes [to rehearse with the band performing].

After band rehearsal — which happens "with makeup half-done, hair half-done," Carson says with a laugh — contestants finish getting glammed up, eat lunch, run through a full dress rehearsal at 2 p.m., "and then we have a small little break before the live show at 5 p.m." But once the show is over, the day's still not quite done. 

CARSON | That is the one thing people forget when they think, "Oh, you can relax [after the live show ends]." It is great after you perform, because you're like, "I'm done, this is great." But you're already — at least for the pros — thinking about that next week. So we never really, truly get to relax. And then when we're doing press [after the show], you have to be on, you know? You have to be answering questions, you have to still be performing, in a way. So we have probably an hour of that. Then you eat dinner. Usually, I just go straight home and order DoorDash [Laughs], and try and get some sleep before the next day.

New episodes of "Dancing With the Stars" Season 35 air Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC and Disney+.