Hermosa Woman is 'Dancing With the Stars'

Professional ballroom dancer Anna Trebunskaya has devoted countless hours inside her Hermosa Beach dance studio for the past week teaching the foxtrot to legendary boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, her partner for this season’s Dancing with the Stars on ABC.

Though this will be Trebunskaya’s seventh time on the show, the Dancing veteran admits there is nothing easy about the competition.

“The technique and style of dancing is the toughest part because it’s so new to all the celebrities,” she said.

Like partner Sugar Ray Leonard, “most have never danced ballroom before,” Trebunskaya told Patch.

Each hour of rehearsal counts as the duo, named “Team Sugar and Spice,” had only one week to prepare for Monday night’s premiere of the show’s season 12.

Inside Trebunskaya’s Hermosa Beach studio on Aviation Boulevard, You Can Dance, she and Leonard practice for roughly six hours every day, beginning at 11 a.m. and ending around 4 p.m., she said.

You Can Dance, co-owned by Trebunskaya, her mother Irina and husband Jonathan Roberts, who has also been on Dancing, has been a part of the Hermosa Beach community for two years.

Trebunskaya even admits “the city is like family now,” she said.

When the show airs, every Monday night Trebunskaya’s mother hosts special viewing parties at the studio, where clients, friends and family tune in to see their ballroom teacher perform on the popular dance show.

“The community has our back and it’s been a great support system,” Trebunskaya said.

The close-knit neighborhood feeling, seeing mothers with strollers along the Strand and dog-walkers around Pier Avenue is what makes Hermosa an “amazing spot,” she said. “You don’t’ even feel like you’re in L.A.”

While she and Leonard have the beach to go and relax to after rehearsals, miles away in Hollywood, the 10-week competition will begin for Dancing and viewers nationwide will see how well Trebunskaya has transformed the former Olympic and professional boxer into a dancer.

“Sugar Ray has a great personality and we have the most fun during rehearsals,” she said. “Hopefully it will be the same kind of energy on stage Monday night. I’m looking forward to going out there with him and just having a good time.”  

So far, Trebunskaya and Leonard have been perfecting the feather steps and natural weave of the foxtrot.

“His habits in boxing, like his posture, are completely different and opposite from dancing that he has to re-learn and re-train like a dancer,” Trebunskaya told Patch.

The Russian-born dancer has previously been paired on the show with athletes including retired NFL stars Jerry Rice and Kurt Warner, and figure skater Evan Lysacek.

Trebunskaya’s partnership with Rice and Lysacek landed her in the finals. She now hopes Leonard will receive the same support from viewers this season, she said.

“I’m excited to perform with Sugar Ray,” Trebunskaya said. “He’s always been known as a showman, so I think he’ll bring that out in his dancing. I’m excited to see how the audience will react to him and his performance.”

As the competition draws near, the hours of training inside the studio become longer, as “every last minute counts before the show,” Trebunskaya said.

This season’s Dancing With the Stars includes celebrities Chelsea Kane, Chris Jericho, Hines Ward, Kendra Wilkinson, Ralph Macchio, Kirstie Alley, Mike Catherwood, Petra Nemcova, Romeo, Sugar Ray Leonard and Wendy Williams.

The two-hour live premiere of Dancing With the Stars will air at 8 p.m. Monday on ABC.