When viewers of the Netflix documentary America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders last saw Victoria Kalina, she had decided to hang up her blue-and-white uniform and move on from the famous NFL dance team.
Her four-year tenure with the DCC punctuated a lifetime spent around the cheerleaders—Victoria’s mother, Tina Kalina, was a cheerleader herself in the 1980s, and Victoria spent her youth as a junior DCC before auditioning for the squad at age 18 and making it the first time the following year at 19.
Now, she’s stepping away, not just from the 50-yard line but from her home in Texas—having recently relocated to NYC in pursuit of the next chapter of her dance career. Dance Spirit caught up with Kalina to chat about life after Netflix, the power of vulnerability, and her advice for young dancers.
How are you? How’s the move to NYC been?
Good! I’m just now starting to feel comfortable enough in making my way around. I know my neighborhood pretty solid. I am not messing up as much on the subway anymore. At first, I literally felt like I looked like a Looney Tune out here with my phone—just like, “Hey, where’s my blue arrow pointing?”
It’ll come! You’ve lived in the city for about a month. What made you want to move to NYC?
My two big dance goals were always the DCC and then the Radio City Rockettes. With DCC, I knew I wanted to do it when I was young to give me some professional experience and allow me to live at home and save some money. The tenure of a Rockette can also be longer than a DCC. I wanted to do that after I had matured out of my younger years.
In Dallas and with DCC we were all secluded. If you were DCC, that’s all you did. But here in New York there’s so many opportunities, and after one gig is up there’s more to come. So, who knows? I’m open to anything.
What is your day-to-day like now?
I train mostly with a former Rockette named Rhonda Malkin. She has taken me under her wing and allowed me to teach my pro style a few times a week.
So I’m teaching classes and privates. I’m also training and taking private lessons myself in the precision style that the Rockettes requires. I’m taking as many classes and workshops as I can. The studio is my second house. If I’m not at Ripley-Grier [Studios], I’m at Steps on Broadway, or I’m at Broadway Dance Center.
I love Danelle Morgan’s precision jazz class that she teaches at Steps. I’m just soaking up everything I can from her when I’m there.
What was your dance background like growing up?
My mom got me into dance, because obviously she was a cheerleader. I have two older brothers, and I know in her heart of hearts she was like, “A girl, please, and let her love dance!” I started at age 2 and stayed with my studio throughout my whole life. I started competing at age 6. I studied ballet, jazz, tap—everything—and did group dances and solos at competitions and conventions. I also hit a prima ballerina wannabe era for a while.
I never did drill team, but I was part of the Junior Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and took all the classes and summer intensives. It wasn’t until the end of my sophomore year of high school that I really took a turn and thought, OK, it’s time to start prepping for DCC.
As a kid, I would always say “I want to be a DCC when I grow up.” But I didn’t see it from a mature perspective, rather than the starry eyes from middle school, until I was older.
In high school, I decided it would be best to do DCC right out of high school. I was thinking: I’m fresh, I’m used to training all day, I’m on my full speed. So why would I want to stop that?
On America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, you were really vulnerable about your struggles with depression and negative body image. What made you want to be so honest?
At first I didn’t! My mom and I have this “beauty to a fault.” We love to come off like everything’s picture-perfect. I’m gonna be the picture-perfect Victoria. Honestly, that gets so exhausting.
I was just like, you know what, I’m going to be honest because this is what I struggle with and it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. That’s not life. That’s not any job. That’s not any opportunity. There’s going to be some struggles, and I think it’s important for people to know that.
What has the response been from viewers?
I’ve been flooded with positive messages. I’m still going through them all. It’s so amazing how one little action of opening up can touch so many people.
When the filming process was finished and it was time for the editors to take charge, I had so much anxiety, thinking maybe I shouldn’t have done that. I was thinking, People are going to think I’m weak. They’re going to read me completely wrong. But it’s been the opposite.
You also shared some of your experiences of not always feeling like you fit in with your teammates. What advice would you give to a young dancer who is going through the same thing?
I would say to lean on your support system and those who really are there to fully back you up. I know personally, when those hard times happened with me, I would just want to stay to myself. But I talked to my mom and leaned on my friend who is like my older sister. Even though sometimes I didn’t have those connections with the team, I still had connections in my life.
Find those people, lean on them, cherish them. Also just remember you’re there for your passion for dance. If you’re at a dance studio and you’re not mixing with the crowd and your group too much, but you love dance, you love performing, and you love doing what you do, remember that.
Is there anything you wish you could tell your younger self?
It’s all meant to be how it’s meant to be. I truly believe that. Even in my first audition for the DCC, I got cut and then I came back. I know in tough times it’s hard to see, but if you dig through and keep going, you’ll eventually see that.
