Arroyo Grande residents can see homegrown talent light up their screens every week during this season of Dancing with the Stars.
A 2000 graduate of Arroyo Grande High School, Harry Shum Jr.—who rose to fame as Mike Chang in Glee—cemented himself as a front-runner in the Season 35 premiere of the dance competition.
His hometown is more than happy to give him a leg up.
“Obviously, I know what Dancing with the Stars is, but I’d never seen it before last night. So, I didn’t know how big it was,” local singer-songwriter Lorde said. “Just knowing Harry’s journey from literally the inception to now at the highest heights of dance is one of the coolest things in the world to see.”
Shum Jr.’s dancing roots go back to his time on Dance Company, the audition-based advanced dance class at Arroyo Grande High School. That’s where he honed his hip-hop dance skills and bonded with Lorde, before the two performed for the Nike-sponsored dance team in Oakland called Culture Shock.
“He moved to LA a little ahead of me to dance,” Lorde said. “He took it more seriously and fell in love with it. I fell in love with music, and that kind of put us on our paths.”
Shum Jr. and Lorde still talk regularly. In fact, it was the dancer’s idea to rally local support for his Dancing with the Stars performances.
Through his resource platform for artists called Connect the Coast, Lorde partnered with fellow Arroyo Grande High School graduate Laura Beth Amy, who runs Humdinger Brewing.
Now, every Tuesday, as long as Shum Jr.’s still a contestant, Humdinger Brewing will host free watch parties of Dancing with the Stars at 8 p.m. The kitchen is closed by then, but that could change in the upcoming weeks.
“We have all of our drinks available. We have beer obviously, seltzers, and we make our own house fruit soda,” Amy said. “I’ll work on trying to get some snacks going during the party.”
It helps to arrive a little early.
Each week, before the episode airs, Shum Jr. will send Lorde a video addressing viewers in Arroyo Grande, which Humdinger will play close to 8 p.m.
The watch party kicked off on Sept. 15. Locals and former classmates of Shum Jr.’s slowly filled bar, cheering for him every time he was featured.
That night, Shum Jr. and his professional dancing partner, Jenna Johnson, finished at the top of the leaderboard among the men, earning 21 points out of 30. They performed the cha-cha to Earth, Wind, & Fire’s “Let’s Groove,” keeping with the theme of dancing to a song from the year the celebrity was born.
“I took that pressure, put it in the pressure cooker, and let it explode on the dance floor!” Shum Jr. said on the show to applauding fans.
While contestants’ futures on Dancing with the Stars are guided by scores from celebrity judges at the end of each performance, audience votes play a greater role in whether they get to keep dancing.
The audience can vote for their favorite contestant up to 10 times per device. Voting opens when Dancing with the Stars airs on the East Coast, on Tuesdays at 5 p.m. PST, and closes an hour later.
Connect the Coast also sends voting reminders to those who’ve signed up for the newsletter on its webpage dedicated to Shum Jr., connxct.club/dwts. The newsletter is free and arrives once a week. Subscribers can opt out whenever they like.
Viewers can text HARRY to 21523 from a U.S. number and also cast their votes online at dwtsvote.abc.com if they want to support Shum Jr.
“He killed it; I mean to get the top score in the first episode. … I’ve never seen him do ballroom [dance],” Lorde said. “I’ve only really ever seen him do hip-hop, but I know he’s a big fan of Gene Kelly, so I know he wasn’t going to let Gene down.”
Fast fact
• The Morro Bay High School Auto Club is set to receive a $2,000 donation from Cruisin’ Morro Bay Car Show. The funding backs hands-on automotive education and will help students continue developing practical skills and explore careers in the industry. ∆
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Autumn Arts Annual 2026.
