“I have talked about my grief. I have cried about my grief. I have written about my grief. But I’ve never danced to my grief.”
Dancing with the Stars’ 30th season has come to an end. And it might be one of our favorite seasons yet. In part because one of Katie’s good friends Amanda Kloots was competing, and we loved watching her dance every week. (We also loved watching Jojo Siwa express herself through dance — and become the first same-sex dancing team the show has seen!)
In the end, former NBA player Iman Shumpert and pro partner Daniella Karagach were named the ballroom champs Monday night. Iman is now the first professional basketball player to make it to the finale or win the Mirrorball Trophy in the show’s history. (A few firsts this season!) And while we were bummed our pal Amanda didn’t win, we cannot deny how impressive their transformation was this season. In the end, their cha-cha and foxtrot dance to “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire, and their freestyle dance sealed the deal. And Amanda knew it from the moment they finished their freestyle dance.
But, she’s no sore loser — she’s just sore! Katie caught up with Amanda to hear about how this experience has helped her heal and changed her forever, putting her trust in Alan, and, of course, what it was like dancing to her late husband Nick Cordero’s song “Live Your Life.”
Katie: What was the hardest part of this experience?
Amanda Kloots: The hardest part about Dancing with the Stars, I think, for me, was definitely the stress of learning a brand new dance each week and needing it to be show-ready, perfect for performance in six days. Every dance is different because the technique is different, the style is different, what makes the dance unique is different. So, to learn it and then to feel good about it and then feel ready enough to perform it, it was exhausting both mentally and physically.
Were you nervous for all the performances?
You know, I actually wasn’t that nervous. I think that’s one area where performing in the past helped me. I tend to get actually very calm before I perform. So it wasn’t necessarily a nervous thing for me.
What did your family think about the whole experience?
They were so invested, every single one of them. It was so cute. I loved having my mom and dad there every Monday, they wouldn’t have missed it for the world. And my brother was having watch parties with his neighbors and my sister’s kids were dressing up in my costumes, makeshift costumes at home. And every single one of them was just so supportive, voting, getting everyone they knew to vote. It was very sweet.
What did your son Elvis think? Did he watch your performances or is he still too obsessed with garbage trucks?
He started to! At the beginning of this competition, I would say, “do you want to watch mama dance?” And he would say, “garbage trucks.” But then he slowly started asking for it and I would watch the videos with him and he would say, “again.” And in the end, when I would say I have to go to work, he would go, “mama dance? Mama has to go dance?” So it was very cute because he kind of went along the journey with me and got into it and then really started liking watching me and Alan dance. He started pointing out Alan too, which was very cute.
Did this make you miss your dancing days on Broadway or as a Rockette?
No, I don’t think so because it’s so incredibly different. The only way it felt like a Broadway show is the camaraderie between the cast and the crew and the celebrities — everybody was really rooting for each other and in it with each other. That made me miss Broadway because that family that you get doing a Broadway show or doing the Rockettes is so special. There’s nothing like the Broadway community. But the dancing and the performing was so incredibly different from what I’ve ever done, that it honestly just made me want to do ballroom more and learn more about ballroom dance.
Tell us about your partner! You must have gotten so close. How did he help you with every performance?
Alan and I got very close. I think one of the best things about Alan is that he really cares about his partners. I could tell that from watching him in seasons past; he really does want to go the extra mile for his partner, create dances that highlight his partner. And I really appreciated that, especially this season for me, when doing some dances that were really hard emotionally and tied to Nick emotionally. And he’s just a really caring person. He’s a very tough teacher. He was very hard on me, I think because he knew he could push me, but I loved that in the end. Some days when I was exhausted from work and having a lot on my mind and not sleeping because of Elvis, those days were hard when he would try to push me, and we definitely butted heads a couple of times. But we really were good at communicating with each other, communicating how I needed to learn and how he could teach me and how we could make that work in our best way to keep moving us forward in this competition.
What was your favorite performance?
Gosh, I have a couple. Off the top of my mind, I loved our Foxtrot week two. I absolutely loved Janet Jackson week, that was really fun. And I loved “Live Your Life.”
Of course, you must have thought about Nick so often during this whole process, how did being on the show help you continue to heal?
Well, I knew coming into this competition that I would learn dances. I knew I would perform them. I knew that I would become emotionally invested just because that’s the kind of person I am, but I didn’t fully understand how this show was going to change me. It kind of kicked in around Janet Jackson week, when I think the exhaustion level, the work level of the show, and my emotional stability kind of all fell apart at the same time. But I always say, when we’re the weakest, we actually get stronger. And that’s when everything kind of kicked in for me. And then when we performed to Nick’s “Live Your Life” song, that dance that week was really hard because I had to emotionally go back in time, really bring up things from the past that obviously still hurt. I told Alan the whole story. I told him things and showed him things that I haven’t shown anyone else except my family. And we incorporated a lot of that into the dance so that it was a story. And I had no idea how that was going to heal me, dancing that dance. I have talked about my grief. I have cried about my grief. I have written about my grief. But I’ve never danced to my grief. And I did not fully understand how much that was going to add a new layer of healing to me, by dancing out those emotions. It was extremely rewarding. And I told Alan, he gave me a gift that I will forever be grateful for.
What did you think of the winning team?
Oh my gosh. I have to say that getting to the finale, I felt like I had already won, and I felt like that because we were all so different: Jojo, Cody, and Iman, we are all very different people, very different dancers, with very different fanbases. Just getting to that finale in this tough season alone was, in my opinion, a win. When Iman danced his freestyle, I knew he won it, it was over. And I was like, he deserves this win. I really was. I went up to him and Daniella and I said, “I hope you guys win.” I really was rooting for them. I think they showed such an incredible transformation and an interesting transformation too, one that you don’t always see on this show. And I think that was really cool.
How sore are you? You must be in the best shape of your life!
Yes! I am extremely sore. I need to let my body heal. I don’t know if my body could have done another week, to be honest. Ibuprofen is a stable food group at the moment, but thank God for the PT at Dancing with the Stars, it’s been keeping me going — these last couple of weeks, especially. But yeah, dancing, especially this kind of ballroom dancing has really changed my body in ways that nothing ever has before. I think anytime you throw your body into something that is completely different, muscles form in places where you never knew you had muscles before, and that was the show.
You’re going to be part of the Dancing with the Stars tour. What does that involve?
So this is so exciting. Kaitlyn Bristowe, last year’s winner, of course, is doing the tour, but she is unable to do the last two weeks of the tour. So they asked me to close out the Dancing with the Stars tour. I’m so excited. I start in March and it’ll be over my birthday as well. So it’ll be a lot of fun. So I hit up those last couple of cities. A lot of them are in California and then Seattle, Boise, Salt Lake City. I’m so glad they asked me to do this. It gave me such relief on Monday that that wasn’t the last time I was going to dance with Alan, it wasn’t the last time I was gonna dance in ballroom. Knowing that I have this coming up is so exciting and it’ll be a lot of fun. I can’t wait.
