‘Dancing With the Stars’ pro Murgatroyd a veteran at age 29

She just turned 29, but by “Dancing With the Stars” standards, Peta Murgatroyd said she feels like one of the “oldies.”

And she sort of is. The Australian dancer, who’s been a professional on the ABC hit show for eight seasons, is one of the most seasoned female professionals in the cast. She and fellow pro Val Chmerkovskiy, who joined the show at the same time she did, are more experienced than any of the other pros on the show’s “Perfect Ten Tour,” which makes a stop at Hartman Arena on Tuesday.

“We’re among the oldest pros left now,” said Murgatroyd, calling last week, just hours before taking the stage in Spokane, Wash. “It’s kind of weird.”

The latest incarnation of the “Dancing With the Stars” road tour, a live version of the show that pairs professional dancers with celebrities for a dance competition, launched its 40-city tour in mid-June in Atlantic City, N.J. In addition to Murgatroyd and Chmerkovskiy, it features several other up-and-coming dancers from the show’s cast, including Witney Carson, Artem Chigvintsev, Emma Slater and Keo Motsepe. It also includes “Dancing With the Stars: All-Stars” winner and fan favorite Melissa Rycroft. (Wichita won’t, however, get to see the most recent “Dancing With the Stars” champ, Rumer Willis. Although she joined the tour for 25 of its dates, Wichita is not one of them.)

The traveling show features the pros performing the same type of high-energy ballroom and modern dances they do on the television show, Murgatroyd said, and it includes costume changes galore.

“We’ll be dancing everything from hip-hop to salsa to fox trot – really just a range of things,” she said. “It’s great for all ages, and by the end of the show, everyone is on their feet wanting to dance with us.”

Murgatroyd, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Perth, Australia, has been dancing since she was a little girl. She was an Australian ballroom champ who, in 2009, was performing on Broadway in “Burn the Floor” when the producers of “Dancing With the Stars” traveled to see her on stage.

“They e-mailed me a contract,” she said. “It was weirdly simple. I didn’t have to go through the usual audition process. I had one on-camera interview to see if I could string a sentence together, and they really liked me. Suddenly, I was the new blond Australian.”

Murgatroyd, who became a member of the show’s professional cast in 2011 for season 13, won the coveted Mirror Ball Trophy with former football player partner Donald Driver in season 14. She’s had several other memorable partners since then, most notably Tommy Chong in season 19. The two are still close, she said.

“He was a huge surprise because when I heard they had a 76-year-old, and I was going to be his partner, I thought I was going to be out first,” she said. “But I love those surprising ones. It turns it around and makes the competition interesting. We got to the semifinals, and he was probably the most influential partner ever to come into my life. I never had a grandfather so I felt like he was that to me. It was lovely to have an older gentleman figure in my life I could sit down with at lunch and talk about life, everything from buying a house to relationship problems.”

Murgatroyd’s relationships are now of great public interest, particularly her relationship with former “Dancing With the Stars” professional Maksim Chmerkovskiy. The two dated in 2012 and 2013 and rekindled their romance earlier this year. Murgatroyd’s Facebook page is filled with photos of the two together.

Getting used to fame has been part of the ride, Murgatroyd said, and she enjoys traveling the United States meeting her fans in person.

“That’s definitely one of the awesome things about the show is that we have made household names for ourselves,” she said. “It elevates you to a level where people see you every Monday and Tuesday night in their living rooms and they feel like they know you. It’s nice. It’s a nice thing. It’s not a bad thing.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 5:37 PM with the headline "‘Dancing With the Stars’ pro Murgatroyd a veteran at age 29."