Archive for December, 2019

Inside a small dance studio on the third floor of a little building tucked next to the Coates Theatre at University of Incarnate Word, about 15 dancers huddled together Saturday afternoon after Thanksgiving for an advanced workshop led by Eliotte Woodford.

The girls could already pirouette like professionals. Their graceful yet strong jumps looked like they would break through the mirror in front of them.

But Woodford, 31, urged them to go bigger.

Imagine youre on a big stage, super big, like a stadium and 100,000 people are watching you, Woodford said. Imagine theyre in the last seat in the stadium. Youre this big to them, she said while squeezing her fingers together as if she picked up an ant.

The San Antonio native knows from experience how to perform for that fan in the nosebleed section of the worlds biggest stadiums. Eliotte Nicole, as she goes by in the entertainment world, has performed before 100,000 people in sold out concerts all over the world.

Woodfords rsum includes a long list of stars she has performed with including Cher, Pitbull and Meghan Trainor. But most notably, Woodford has sang and danced backup to super star Taylor Swift for the singers last three world stadium tours: Red, 1989 and Reputation. Woodford is currently promoting Swifts latest album, Lover, and performed with Swift on the American Music Awards stage in Los Angeles last Sunday, where Swift was awarded Artist of the Decade.

But before all of that, Woodford sang and danced at San Antonios Reagan High School, in the North East Independent School District, from where she graduated in 2006.

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You know technically you danced for me first, Woodfords longtime friend, Amanda Jeffries sometimes tells Woodford, who gets a kick out of it. Its true, Woodford says. She was in Jeffries performance at the high schools annual, much anticipated Pop Show.

Woodford got the singing gene from her mother, Juli Henderson, who owns and operates her own private voice studio, JH Voice Studio. But her venture into dancing was a fluke, Henderson said.

Woodford was a tomboy and an athlete while was attending Bush Middle School and dreamed of swimming in the Olympics. But an injury sidelined her, and people around her suggested she take up dancing as movement therapy. She at first rejected the notion of a girly girl activity, but later decided to give it a try. It was the beginning of what would be a years-long conversation about the direction of her life.

In high school, she participated in Charmers Pep Squad, Silver Stars Drill and the Diamond Dancers teams. She also sang in the choir and twice made the coveted Texas All-State Choir. It was with the choir that she first traveled to New York and attended Broadway shows that left a mark on her.

I was just like Holy moly this is awesome just seeing the magic of New York, Woodford said.

All the while, she was taking advanced-placement classes and was inducted to the National Honor Society.

Her choir teacher, Jo Scurlock-Dillard, was amazed by Woodfords concentration. In faculty group meetings, Woodfords teachers would marvel at how much Woodford exceeded in.

I would go to her counselor and say, I dont think she ever sleeps, Scurlock-Dillard recalled.

Though she was talented in performing arts, Scurlock-Dillard thought Woodford would go on to become a doctor, like her father.

Woodford did, too. She went to Washington University in St. Louis because it is known as a good school for pre-medicine students. She started studying dance and biology, but she had a nagging feeling that a medical career was not what she was supposed to do with her life. She changed her majors to dance and marketing, with it in the back of her mind that she might go into the entertainment business. She recorded and toured with an a capella ensemble and danced for a professional dance company.

I was slowly falling in love with this idea of performing. I dont think I was really able to admit it for real until I was maybe in college, in my freshman or sophomore year, Woodford said.

Her dream of performing was solidified the summer before her junior year in college when she interned at the Broadway Dance Center in New York. She said she went hoping to discover how she stacked up against top tier performers. She finished the summer signed with an agent.

I was like, Ok, were going to do this, Woodford said. She graduated with her bachelors degree in 2010 and persuaded her parents to let her go to L.A. in pursuit of a different career.

On ExpressNews.com: Reagan marching band, dancers stop by 'Today Show' while in NYC for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

There, she worked the early morning shift at a Starbucks which allowed her to go to auditions in the afternoons and work as a bartender in the evenings until she regularly booked performing gigs.

Back in the San Antonio studio Saturday, Woodford told the girls to pretend a camera was inches from their face.

This is what I want to see. I want to see your personality. Its your own show, she said.

Your personality is what will set you apart from the hundreds of other girls in the audition room who have the same skill set, Woodford told her students. Casting directors will observe how they engage one another before they ever begin to perform, she said.

Watching her daughter never gets old, said Henderson who stood against a side wall in the studio. Woodfords parents have traveled the world following their daughter, like groupies, Henderson said with a laugh.

The first time Woodford returned home for a performance was in 2013 during Swifts Red tour. Coincidentally, it was the last of Swifts tours to travel to San Antonio.

The show coincided with the San Antonio Spurs playoff run against the Miami Heat. Still a devout Spurs fan, Woodford paraded the stage wearing a Tim Duncan jersey over her costume for the final bow.

No matter where Woodford goes, shes a San Antonian at heart. A Lyft driver recently shared that his daughter was contemplating a move to San Antonio.

Its the best city, Woodford recalled telling him.

It is where Woodford married her husband, Ryan Woodford. Swift flew in to attend the wedding at Trinity Universitys Parker Chapel and the reception at the Pearl Stable. It was a no-brainer, Woodford said, to marry in her hometown.

And she always tries to give back to her community. Last year, during Swifts Reputation tour, Woodford took a detour between concerts in Houston and Arlington to visit her alma mater and talk to students at Reagan High School. Her message that lessons learned in dance and choir are true across career paths inspired students, said Jeffries, who is now an assistant choir director there.

The workshop on Saturday benefited the San Antonio Ballet School and Youth Ballets outreach program that teaches kids in South San Antonio and San Antonio independent school districts.

Woodford credits San Antonio in part for her success. Southern hospitality that Texas is known for influenced her personality and her motto: Work hard and be kind.

If you work hard and just be nice to people, youll be OK, she said. Youll make it.

Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva

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San Antonio woman, a singer and dancer with Taylor Swift, gives back to communitys performing arts - San Antonio Express-News

When I was a little girl, I had high-flying dreams and they had very little to do with my juvenile arthritis, a childhood illness similar to rheumatoid arthritis (RA). First, I wanted to be a ballerina and practiced dance moves on my parents' Persian rug. Then I watched Jacques Cousteau and his crew of marine biologists diving in waters all over the world and scuttled the dancing dream in favor of serving on his ship, the Calypso, and spending much of my life under water. But at age 16, I went home after a two-year hospital stay in a power wheelchair, trailing recommendations from my then-medical team to lower my expectations of life to those resembling a turnip's. Because of the disease, y'know.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a function of attitudes in a land and time far away from now. But these perceptions persist, if not in others, then certainly in ourselves. Its a strange thing, this shift in assumption and expectation. The minute you get a diagnosis of chronic illness, its as if the rug is pulled out from under you. Your future, which had just shone with possibility, now seems dull, hopeless, and framed in less-than.

Do you really have to give it all up and accept a life of sitting on the sidelines? No. Not by a long shot. The key is to adapt and change your approach. But more on that in a bit. First, lets take a look at the obstacles.

I've lived with RA for more than half a century and have learned that the only predictable thing about this condition is that you never know what it'll do next. Sometimes, you're lucky and find a medication that works, suppressing the symptoms so you can get back to your life. At other times, its all you can do to get dressed in the morning. And, of course, all the stages in between.

Fifty years ago, an American psychologist by the name of Martin Seligman did a study that led to a classic theory of depression. He divided dogs into two groups. Both would receive shocks, but one group of dogs would be able to escape, the other not. The dogs that had no control over the situation curled up in a ball, whimpering. Seligman developed a theory called learned helplessness, stating that when people have no agency (that is, no control), they are more likely to develop depression.

When you have no ability to predict how your RA will feel in the morningand therefore what you will be able to doyou can feel helpless. If youre feeling that kind of helplessness for weeks or months, it spreads into other areas of your life, making you feel depressed. It may even be accompanied by its bratty cousin, "Feel Like Giving Up." And that's OK. Because RA affects every part of your life and it's hard to re-learn how to be you. There's nothing wrong with having a moment (or 10) of intense frustration. But what's really important is to make sure it doesn't stick around.

So much of living with RA is about kicking that cousin out of your psyche. Again, your doctor can help, as can therapy, family and friends, and a community of others like you. Having support will help you fight back and find other ways of taking up the reins of your life.

The great thing about life is that there is no one way to do anything. Whether it's opening a jar, having a family, or building your own business, there are ways around that big boulder called RA in the middle of your path. These tips can help:

Talk to your doctor. Your rheumatologist is one of the most important members on your team. If your RA is getting in the way of you creating a life, call them. You might need to adjust your treatment so you can start the journey back to living first, with RA just muttering in the background. Many people also include diet, exercise, supplements, and alternative treatments in how they approach living with RA.

Give yourself extra time to achieve your goals. Maybe your RA diagnosis won't require a complete change in direction for your life. You might be able to stay on your current career path or even keep training for that big race you've been wanting to tackle, but it's probably going to take a little extra time to get there. Getting the right treatment working for you can take time, and flares don't respect your "to-do" list.

Don't expect to follow "normal" timelines when it comes to working toward big goalsRA is bound to get in the way. When it comes to dreams, pursuing them is what matters, not how you go about it. You are free to create your own path, one that respects and accommodates your RA. For instance, I used to work as a policy analyst, frequently working from home four days a week on research and writing tasks. This enabled me to work much more effectively, with fewer sick days.

When RA brings physical limitations, use your mental muscle instead. I will forever be grateful to my parents for the way they dealt with the lost teenager who came home from the hospital. They told me that although my body might not work very well, there was nothing wrong with my mind and they expected me to use it. This meant working hard in school so I could get to college. By then, I had realized the importance of focusing on what I was able to do (and not just because I couldn't swim, so working with Cousteau was a wash).

Finding alternate routes to getting where I wanted to go eventually became a bit of a hobby and by now, I can almost always find a way around an obstacle. Remember that although your condition might get in the way of you becoming a trapeze artist, you can absolutely find another way to be in the circus.

Go easy on yourself, but not too easy. Frustration about struggling with RA might get misdirected toward yourself. Try not to be angry at yourself or your body. It'll get you nowhere, except derailed, and it isnt something you would tolerate for anyone else. Be kind and understanding to yourself.

Human beings have a gift of adaptation, being able to live in almost any climate, under any conditions, and changing their approach to survive. Use that gift to create your life. Yes, with RA, but a life in which you tear down limits of low expectations.

Following your dreams is a process, sometimes a long one, with side tracks and pauses, and often infuriatingly so. But persevering, accommodating your own needs to move slower, to take pauses, but then reassessing and getting back to your path is possible. The only way to live with RA is to become as stubborn as a goat and refuse to stay down. You learn to withstand long periods of having to put your dream (and your life) on hold while you deal with your condition and its nonsense. During those times of flares and pain, you hone a single-minded focus by getting through each day. When it is over, when you are better and get your life back, you use that focus to pick up your dream and work on it some more.

After many years of attending university, with many challenges, I graduated with my masters degree in social work. After immigrating to Canada from Denmark, and with the offer of a government job in human rights, I thought of those doctors who'd had zero expectations of the girl with a chronic illness and disability. In that moment, I wanted very much to write them a letter, telling them how their assumptions of my inability had had the exact opposite effect: They had only spurred me on.

In my family, that's called the "Show the Bastards" gene. I'll bet you have one, too.

Go here to read the rest:
Rheumatoid Arthritis Will Change Your Life. It Doesn't Have to Ruin It. - HealthCentral.com