“Dance-Offs” Are Coming to ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Tonight: Here’s How the Scoring Works

It’s Grammy Night on Dancing With the Stars, and there’s a twist! On top of performing to award-winning songs, the remaining couples (minus Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson) are competing in “dance-offs,” where they’ll be performing the same dance style to the same song—at the same time. A little confused as to how the whole thing goes down? Here’s what to expect tonight.What Are Dance-Offs?As the show puts it in their official press release: “Two at a time, couples face off against one another on the ballroom floor as they dance head-to-head in the same style at the same time. Winners of each of the three Dance-Offs will be selected by the judges, and the winning couple from each dance-off will receive bonus points added to their judges’ totals for the night.”Here’s an example from a few seasons back:What’s Everyone Dancing To?Here are the pairings, the songs, and the dance styles:Amber and Pasha vs. Ezra and DaniBoth couples will perform a rumba to “The Boy Is Mine,” performed live by Brandy and Monica.Jenna and Val vs. Tatyana and JanBoth couples will perform a cha-cha to “The Middle,” performed live by Maren Morris.Connor and Rylee vs. Maura and MarkBoth couples will perform a cha-cha to “All I Wanna Do,” performed live by Sheryl Crow.Does America Vote on the Dance-Offs?As far as we know (unless things have changed!), it comes down to the judges! The winner of each dance-off will get extra points added to their score—which could change the leaderboard before the public votes are factored into things.Why Aren’t Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson Dancing?These two have immunity thanks to getting the highest scores last week! Which means judges will automatically add the dance-off bonus points to their score this week.FYI, there’s been some backlash to the dance-off pairings, which you can read all about below.