Brentwood Academy alum earns spot on Nashville Sounds dance team
By SAMANTHA HEARNBrentwood Academy graduate Karli Whitson has had dreams of being a dancer ever since she first started high school, and the 21-year-old recently learned that she made the cut to be a Nashville Sounds dancer.
Whitson grew up dancing since the age of about three, hating it initially but finding a passion for it again around the 4th grade.
“I started competing around then and didn’t stop,” she said. “But once I graduated from high school, it was kind of the end of the competition scene.”
An exercise science major at Belmont University, Whitson began auditioning as a dancer for music videos and other roles in entertainment.
“Around the end of January I heard about auditions for the Sounds, so I auditioned and I got it,” she said. “I’m not the type of person to get very nervous at auditions, but honestly this was a little intimidating because it’s such a big thing.”
Whitson said the audition process included a one-minute dance routine to any song, and if a dancer made it past that round then they were brought back in on the same afternoon to learn a choreographed routine.
“They let us know about a month after that whether we made it or not,” Whitson said. “I did like a jazz, hip-hop routine for the first portion of the audition. That’s my speciality and what I grew up enjoying the most. A lot of other auditions just teach you a dance, and I feel really blessed that in this one they wanted to see our personalities and own style in addition.”
Whitson learned she made the team via email and in just a few weeks she was in rehearsals and learning new dances.
“We’re really always in game mode,” she said. “When there’s a game going on, we learn new dances during the innings. We are literally always working. It’s an amazing challenge.”
Whitson also played other sports in high school like softball, but said that when 9th grade hit and she continued dance she knew it was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
“At Belmont, my major allows me to learn about the body, understand it and study it,” she said. “I want to open my own dance studio one day so I can train girls how to understand and execute moves, understand the muscle systems you have to use to create those movements.”
Baseball season will end the first week of September, and Whitson will get back to her classes at Belmont.
“We will take a break which is nice because some of us go back to school or do other things,” she said. “Some of the girls on the team are with the Titans. A lot of us stay active. We’ll have to reaudition again in January or February.”
Whitson said her favorite thing about being a Sounds Dancer is that the team has been a strong support system.
“There are some of the best people in the business working for the Sounds,” she said. “One of the nicest things is having little kids come up to you and want to take their picture with you, it’s a humbling experience. We have 12 girls on the team and, in all honesty, it’s the best dynamic. There are different personalities and we all have different strong suits, and it’s really fun to pull that out of each other.”
