Local dancers set for the Dancing with the Stars

By Aideen O’Flaherty

TWO professional dancers from Tallaght and Ballyfermot have been tasked with putting celebs through their paces on the first Irish season of Dancing with the Stars.

They’ll be joining 10 other professional dancers who will feature in the glamorous competition due to air on RTÉ One this January.

Shauna Finn, from Tallaght, and Karen Byrne, from Ballyfermot, are award-winning dancers who’ve both represented Ireland at international level.

Shauna (17), a past pupil of St Mark’s Community School in Springfield, said she was “overwhelmed” by the prospect of being on the show.

Describing how she came to be chosen for the dancing reality show, Shauna said that she was standing in school, on the day of her Leaving Cert results, when she got a phone call about auditions for the show.

After auditioning, Shauna said she “honestly wasn’t expecting to get anything”, so to be picked as a professional dancer for the show came as a huge surprise.

She described the teachers in St Mark’s as being “very supportive” of her dancing ambitions, with the talented Tallaght teen practicing at 6am, going to school, and then teaching afterwards.

Ballyfermot native Karen Byrne (24), has been dancing since the age of six and runs the Karen & Wojtek School of Dance in Palmerstown.

Karen is Ireland’s top Latin dancer and came first in the Adult International Open Latin 2015.

Dancing with the Stars will premiere on RTÉ One on January 8, and will see 11 Irish celebrities competing to win the coveted ‘glitterball trophy’.