Amber Glen is headed into Oct. 13 with a samba she has never had to try in skating. She and Pasha Pashkov are scheduled to dance to J Balvin's Mi Gente on Dancing With the Stars, extending her run after last week's rumba kept the pair in the competition.
"I've never done anything close to a samba in skating before, and now I get to try that," Glenn said in a video posted by Extra. She added, "I just want to keep going" and "I really just want to show everyone new sides of me," a blunt read on the job in front of her: survive another round and show range fast.
Stonebriar Centre to season 35
At 26 years old, Glenn is carrying a résumé that reaches far beyond this TV turn. She grew up in Plano and began skating at age 5 at Frisco's Stonebriar Centre mall, then built toward three consecutive U.S. national championships from 2024 through 2026 and a win at the 2024 Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in Grenoble, France.
That backdrop matters because the Oct. 13 routine asks for a different kind of performance language. A samba runs on grounded rhythm and quick weight changes; skating rewards edge control and speed, but not the same hip action or step-driven timing. Glenn's challenge is not whether she can move. It is whether she can translate precision into a dance style that does not borrow from the ice.
Mariah Carey Night result
Last week, Glenn and Pashkov used a rumba to Mariah Carey's Hero and advanced to the next round. The result kept Amber Glenn and Pasha Pashkov in a season 35 field that, after Ciara Miller's elimination, still had 11 celebrity contestants, with Jenna Dewan, Julia Stiles, Tatyana Ali, Guillermo Rodriguez and Joe Buck still in the mix.
The practical payoff is simple: Glenn stays on the board for another vote cycle, another rehearsal block and another chance to broaden how viewers see a Team USA skater whose résumé already includes gold in the figure skating team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, fifth place in the women's individual competition and the first U.S. woman to land three triple axels at a single Olympics. The next test is whether Mi Gente lets that technical background read as versatility instead of habit.
