In the Spotlight with Amanda Cardona

By Kristy Watson

 

Amanda Cardona moved to Austin from the Bronx, New York and is currently working full time in Marketing at Dell and teaches part-time here, at Go Dance.She has a rich background in the Salsa/Latin styles and we are happy to welcome her to our fantastic dance community.

She studied Finance/International Business and minored in French at Georgetown University and received her MBA in Media/Entertainment/Technology Management and Marketing Management from Kellogg School of Management @ Northwestern University.  She also studied in various institutions in France, Spain, Mexico and Japan.

Amanda used to run a dance company in NY for four years and then decided to take a hiatus. When the dancing, performing, teaching, choreographing bug bit again, she felt it was a good time to jump back in the game.  She responded to Mylie’s post on Austin Yahoo Groups for a dance instructor and credits Mylie with exceptional timing!

Amanda says her first primal basic love is for Jazz dance. “Most people know me for my Salsa/Cha Cha expertise, but when I really get going, all of that is infused by my background in Jazz.  I love it all though.  I've trained in many classical styles; ballet, pointe, modern, jazz and tap. I then switched over to competitive International style 10-dance ballroom (Latin and Standard). I then switched over to Club Style Salsa (on1 and on2), as well as Cha Cha, and basically any other Latin dance (Bachata, Merengue, etc), throw in some Hip-Hop and well, I'm pretty danced out!”

I asked Amanda how Go Dance differed from other places she worked.  “So much more organization!  And I'm in one studio! (I used to bounce between three locations to teach dance for one company!)  Everyone here is nice and I love the diversity of dances that I can watch unfold right in front of me.  It's great for picking up tips, trying to blend different styles together, as well as to see how dancing evolves. I remember when I was competing in International style ballroom- you would NEVER catch people dancing to such contemporary songs - very exciting!”

Amanda says that she started dancing at the very young age of 3, and at the age of 8, she placed first in a tap division with her team at a Showstopper competition. She fared well in competitions in college, and was part of the original cast for the off-Broadway production "Latin Madness".She performed at numerous Salsa Congresses in the US and the Caribbean.She managed a dance team that was part of a company called Razz M' Tazz and was head choreographer and trainer.

Amanda has many interests outside of dancing. She says she’s up for trying almost anything once!  She loves the movies, shopping, traveling, reading, watching and playing sports - especially baseball!One of her goals is to see a game at all of the MLB ballparks. She likes wine tasting, swimming, nature stuff every now and then- but traveling definitely tops the list for her.

Her personal goals are to travel more, live in more places than she already has, finish seeing the other two states in the US that she hasn’t already seen (Alaska and Hawaii - she’s been to the other 48), learn some more languages (3 is not enough!).

Amanda says if anyone is ever traveling and wants to hit up the local dance spots, let her know – she’s lived or been to a quite a few places and the first thing is always to scope out where to get her groove on!!!

Amanda has a few videos on my space.They are pretty cool!Check them out!

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1324977 

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1187035