Mrs. Kilmer, a teacher here at Gainesville, spends her time outside of the classroom as a dance coach. In this interview she described what it’s like, common misconceptions, and much more.
Dancing takes a lot more than it seems, it takes precise movement, good team mechanic, and a plethora of other things. People may think dance is easy, but Kilmer knows the hardships that come with being a dancer. Kilmer has been coaching for a long time, which she enjoys very much.
“I’ve been coaching dance for 14 years. With 9 of those years at my previous school [5 years at GHS]. I danced when I was younger too, so I just love dance in general and love coaching people!” Kilmer said.
While Mrs. Kilmer enjoys her time in the classroom, she also loves dance team and all the things that come along with it.
“I specifically love dance team. I don’t think people realize that dance team is a lot of different than other types of dance. So, I like the environment of dance team, performing at the games and things like that, [also] being apart of the school culture,” Kilmer continued.
The Gainesville Cardinette dance team comes with a lot of proud moments and enjoyment.
“Seeing the girls grow over the years, getting to see them as freshmen and watching them become better dancers is awesome to see. Also being able to watch them become a team, that’s really cool as well.” Kilmer said.
Kilmer has an incredibly positive coaching style that helps the girls get out of their comfort zones and grow as dancers.
“My coaching style is to try to push them to attempt to learn new skills. I always like to call it positive peer pressure. [To] introduce them to things that are most likely difficult for most of them, but then through being around the other girls, especially the older girls who can do those things, they start to develop those skills,” Kilmer said.
You may be wondering what Kilmer likes to enforce the most on dance team before each football game, the thing Kilmer stresses the most when coaching might surprise you.
“[I like to stress about] performance ability. Especially out there on the football field because it’s far away from the crowd, so you need to be able to really perform the dance. It’s one thing to know the dance, and do the dance, but you have to perform the dance. So, once we know the dance we’ve learned it, I try to emphasize to them that they need to put some personality into it,” she explained.
There are a lot of misconceptions in dance, such as that dance is only for young girls, or the dancers are naturally flexible, or even that it’s not a real career. However, Kilmer strongly disagrees with these rumors.
“Those all couldn’t be falser is they tried. It’s not just for young girls, and if you actually go see the college dance circuit right now, it’s enormous. Also, no, they are not naturally flexible at all, they are no different than any other human which means that they work extremely hard to be as flexible as they are. And for the last one, so many turn their careers into dancers or dance coaches or dance studio directors and a lot of other job opportunities,” she emphasized.
If you thought what they were doing was easy, then you may want to think again.
“The entire fundamental job of a dancer is to make what they are doing look easy, so it’s kind of a double-edged sword. If you’re good at it, it looks easy, but the problem is that the crowd thinks it’s easy, and they think they can do it with ease,” Kilmer noted.
While coaching does come with its hardships, Kilmer plans on coaching for the rest of her teaching career, which is great because she certainly is great at it!
