Story & Photos by LISA ANDERSON
Angela Boone
“When the marimba rhythms start to play, dance with me, make me sway,” Michael Bublé sings. It’s a song that gets me moving and dancing in a poorly-timed shoulder sway, as I wash the dishes. I clumsily glide across the kitchen floor, imagining I’m gracefully following my dance partner across a beautiful ballroom, sparkling in lights and sequins.
For AVP of Branch Delivery Experience (Insight Credit Union) and podcaster Angela Boone, dancing has long been a part of her life, and she is far better at it than I could possibly be. “I started dancing when I was in middle school—you know, your typical jazz, ballet, and tap. I’ve always loved to dance,” Angela emphatically states.
She danced her way through high school, and while in college, she joined the Caribbean Student Association, a community dance program. “When I went to college, I went for business, and it’s very analytical, for the most part.”
A part of her loves creating lists and checking off the boxes, but Angela is drawn to dance, because it doesn’t involve analytical thinking. “I get to be free. I get to create. I get to have fun, and with ballroom, as a lady, you’re not a leader. So, all you have to do is follow. That’s it. That’s all you have to do, and that’s the beautiful part about it.”
Moving without Movement
Although Angela spent most of her youth in Ocala and considers it her hometown, she had no plans to return to the area, once she moved to attend Florida State University. Through a series of events, she and her husband bought a home in Ocala in 2013.
The transition back to her hometown wasn’t an easy one, and Angela didn’t even have dance to help get her through it.
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Posted on Instagram and Facebook on October 13, 2021
(FOLLOW ME 2 of 4) Now a mother of a three-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter, Angela’s relationship with Ocala ebbs and flows. Overall, she’s happy to be here near her parents, and she also enjoys raising her kids here.
Her husband has started taking dance lessons. Although, Angela admits he would probably rather be playing football. “I see so much potential that he could be really, really good if wanted to be,” she smiles, as she confesses that he’s putting in the work because she loves it.
Posted on Instagram and Facebook on October 20, 2021
(FOLLOW ME 3 of 4) If you were to ask Angela when she was graduating high school what she was going to do, “I would say (this is so funny to me) that I was going to graduate, go to school, double major in dance and in business, and open my own dance studio.” Her laughter bubbles up as she can barely complete the sentence through her chuckles.
Posted on Instagram and Facebook on October 27, 2021
(FOLLOW ME 4 of 4) But Angela didn’t major in dance. Instead, she has a double major in business and science and human resources. She even went on to get an MBA with a concentration in human resources and she has spent most of her career in banking.
This hasn’t stopped her from finding ways to include dance in her life. To help her settle into the Ocala area, she taught free dance lessons for a while, and often joins her husband for his lessons. But in 2020, during the pandemic, Angela decided to reconnect to dance in a new way.
