Jerry Gimbleson

I am an actor. When people think “actor,” they think of the ones in a play or on the big screen, but they never think of the ones on the ballroom floor. I am a ballroom dancer at the University of Georgia. My career in the art started almost two years ago when I was looking for physical activities to do. With a deformed spine and chronically injured knees, there were only a handful of things to choose from. I chose to learn how to ballroom dance because I wanted to put each style of dance I learned under the special skills section on my acting resume, but that soon changed. As the weeks went by, I fell in love with the art and decided I wanted to learn more, not for the sake of my acting resume, but for the love of the dance. I soon took an interest in auditioning for the Ballroom Performance Group at UGA, but was not confident in myself. That is when my guardian angel took me under her wings and taught me how to dance. Before her, I had two left feet. Soon, I found myself confidently dancing through the audition songs in the styles of Waltz, Cha-Cha, and East Coast Swing. To my excitement, I was accepted into the group and have been a proud member for over a year now. We are soon to put on our 35th anniversary of the show we like to call “Ballroom Magic.” Now, I will be an actor dancing upon the ballroom floor of UGA’s new dance theatre.