Caroline Woody Interview

Caroline shares her most memorable experience of winning a national dance competition in Vegas with her high school dance team. The dance was called "The End" and choreographed by her late dance teacher, Antoine. Caroline still dances ballet twice a week and participates in annual dance reunions to keep the community alive. She hopes to branch out into other dance styles in the future. Antoine has had a profound impact on her life and she cherishes the memories they shared. All right, hello, my name is Morgan and I have Caroline with me today and my first question is going to be what is the most memorable thing that has ever happened to you? Oh, the most memorable thing that's ever happened to me? I would say I danced all throughout my high school experience and my coaches were like basically second parents to me and my junior year we went to Vegas for our national competition and our dance won, like our group dance won the national competition for that and we had never won at nationals before so it was really really exciting and I just remember like all of us it like it just felt so deserved and so earned and we were really really excited to be able to like showcase who we are as like a small dance studio from Arizona that nobody really knew about and so that was really really exciting and my dance teacher passed away a couple years ago so I really just think about him very often and like that's a really special moment for me. What kind of dance was it and do you remember what song it was choreographed to? Yes, I do. It was it was called The End and it's I don't remember who sings the song but the song is from Little Miss Sunshine and we had roses and we would throw like the roses and there'd be like rose petals all over the stage and it was just like a really like theatrical and like fun dance to do and it was just really impactful and yeah I loved every minute of it. It was it was the best. Was your late dance teacher a big part of this choreography? Did he choreograph it himself? Did he have a team behind him? Yeah, so he he was what we call our assistant director and he and my other part they they were partners together their names were Antoine and Amber and they started teaching us when I was 11 years old all the way until I graduated and they were the full choreographers behind everything that we did specifically him specifically Antoine and now to this day multiple of the dance competitions that we used to go to they have a award that's dedicated to him and they tribute whenever they come to Arizona and at nationals there is an award that is attributed to him because of the impact that he really had on the dance world. I can't even tell you how many like choreography awards he won and all of that different stuff and now that he's passed on Amber who was his partner is now still at the studio she's taken more of a step back in her role but she still choreographs and she still spends time with the dance studio so it's it's a really cool family that's still alive. Yeah, that's awesome. You can tell just how impactful that his wife was and how many people he touched just by like what you've told me so far and do you still dance to this day? Is it still like an important part of your life at all? Yes, it is. It's always been a little bit different like I was heavily competitive up until the age of 18 and then I went to college and I kind of took a step back but I did like club dance so I didn't compete in college but I did club dance in college and then after I graduated I kind of took a step off but now I do ballet twice a week and I still like listen to my old dance songs because they remind me of him and then we have dance reunions we have a reunion every single year around Christmastime. It used to be because we were all off at college and we usually came home for Christmas but now a lot of us are graduated and have moved on and done other things but we do all come back every Christmas and we do a little reunion and sometimes that'll be a dance class that we all do together sometimes it's a potluck sometimes we go to the movies or we go to zoo lights or whatever the case is but we still really try and keep that community alive and that's purely because of who he was as a person. Yeah that's amazing that you guys still come together and are able to do stuff like that. Would you say that you thought about branching into other dance styles now that you're graduated out of your dance academy everything like that or are you gonna stick with ballet? I would love to branch out into other dance styles. I used to do basically everything under the sun except like ballroom and my favorite was always like contemporary or you know lyrical and I get kind of some of that from ballet but I would I would love to get back into taking some classes as an adult and that's something that that is like a goal of mine this year is I would have been really terrified to go to like an adult ballet class but I've now been doing it for a year and it's given me more courage to then branch out and do different adult dance classes or that's why I also really love yoga because you kind of like get a little bit of that in there as well and it's honestly my favorite way to exercise so I do really try to incorporate it on my own I'll teach myself TikTok dances at home which you know so I like I still dance but I would love to branch out and like take more classes. Awesome that's amazing and before I leave you do you have any final thoughts about anything we've discussed? I honestly I'm just really happy that I got to talk about Antoine today he's honestly one of the most important people in my life and will always be I have a tattoo of a saying that he always used to say on my arm and truly like his impact was so heavy on me he did the father-daughter dance with me when I was in high school like he truly was just an important part of my life so I'm really glad that I got to talk to about him for like this amount of time because he really is special and he made me who I am today. Yeah thank you for letting me interview you and sitting down with me.