An S-Shaped Point  – The Banner Newspaper

Trading in Dance Shoes for a Painless Future.

By Skylar Pointer

When we think of dancers, we tend to think of the Julliard prodigies. But there are none like the un-Julliard students with a passion for the sport like Nikki Caroccia.

“I started when I was 3,” said Caroccia, “but I was in there since I was 9 months old since my 5 older siblings also did dance.”

Alongside the friends, she made inside of the studio, Caroccia kicked, flipped, and pirouetted her way around the dance floor for years. Putting in 12-hour days and the hard work only a professional could do. This dedication to the craft led her to call this place her second home.

Even so, she sometimes wanted something different.

“I wanted to go out to a party,” said Caroccia, “ but I had no time for that. It was school, dance, and then homework. Sometimes just dance.”

Even with that voice inside, Caroccia kept going and pushing forward in her dance career. She would work her tail off before the New Jersey competitions.

This would lead Caroccia to win several awards as her time as a dancer leaped forward. She went on to win a “special award” for her first ever solo at 11. That same year got a second place award and a scholarship for a dance intensive.

This hard work would come to a crashing halt one day in 2018 when she started to feel pain in her back. Caroccia would go to the doctor and find out that she had scoliosis. Doctors told her that this would only put her dancing on a temporary hold.

Regardless of that news, once Caroccia went back to the dance floor her pain in her back only worsened, leading her back into the doctor’s chair. It took a specialist to tell her that she would need surgery on her back.

“They said it would be best for my future,” said Caroccia, “it would have stunted my growth.”

So, with that in mind, Caroccia got the back surgery. This surgery would place two metal rods in her back to make her back align. This should help alleviate her pain and give her a better future ahead.

Yet this surgery does have its downsides to it just as much as its ups. Because for Caroccia saw those disadvantages in her dancing.

After trying to hit the dance floor once more, a simple task like a leg lift became a grieving task. Pirouettes were harder to balance. And tumbling made her tumble.

So, in 2019, Coroccia decided to take her last bow. With the place she once called a second home put behind her.

“I used to flip and tuck,” said Caroccia, “I haven’t been able to do that since 2019.”

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