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At a spac iou s st ud io i n Hol ly wo o d , a ba refo ot Ju l ia n ne

Hough is hyping up a group of dancers auditioning to

become trainers for a new workout method she’s created.

Wearing shiny mauve leggings and a matching sports bra,

she paces back and forth, doing her best to make eye con-

t ac t w it h e ach p er son. “ We’re cre at i ng a n env i ron ment

that’s inclusive and where everyone is accepted,” says

Julianne, eliciting cheers of Yayyyy! and I hear that! from

the crowd. “That’s the world I want to live in.”

Dance has always been a part of Julianne’s life—she

began competing at age 9 in her home state of Utah and

went on to become a pro (and later a judge) on Dancing

With the Stars. She landed her first lead acting role in the

2011 remake of Footloose, yet never really understood

what dance gave her until recently.

“Dance is my superpower, and it has been my whole life,

but I didn’t even know it,” she says. But others did. Before

Julianne started choreographing what she calls her “high-

sensory activated dance method,” she remembers people

telling her they wanted to dance like her. “What does that

even mean?” she mused in an Instagram post earlier this

year. “Do you want to do a high kick, pirouette into a split?”

No. They wanted to dance without

feeling self-conscious.

“I have no boundaries when I

dance,” she says, now seated on a

couch, snuggled up in a sweater and

nursing a jug of lemon water. For

Julianne, dancing without limits is

all about the mind-body connec-

tion. By creating her dance method,

Kinrgy (kin a s i n fa m i ly a nd k i ne s-

thetic, plus energy), she wants to

encourage others to move freely

and feel transformed.

Julianne’s own “massive trans-

formation” started four months

after her July 2017 wedding to pro-

fessional hockey player Brooks

Laich. Marriage was her big happy

ending, she thought, but then she re-

alized she wanted more. She needed

to find her purpose. That purpose,

it t u r n s out, i s helpi ng l i f t ot her s up