The Analytical Artist FROM BALLET DANCER TO ACTRESS AND SCIENTIST, IS THERE ANYTHING TINA MORONI CAN’T DO?! BY: LAUREN SPEIRS
Originally from Williamstown, New Jersey, dancing and acting never overlapped for Tina. She danced professionally until she was 25 years old and, when she went to UCF for forensic science, she realized she couldn’t keep up with both school and dancing simultaneously. Once Tina stopped dancing, she found a passion for acting. Even though she left professional dancing, her methods for approaching a play are similar to the way she would learn a dance. “For me, there’s a high marriage of physicality with acting. I struggle with learning lines until I know where I’m moving or what I’m doing. As a dancer, you’re trained to see and then do. See the routine, do the routine. This trained me to be able to mimic every motion and emotion. It helped a lot with any non verbal communication. There are moments in a play where you want to convey a specific emotion without words and you need to know how to show that in some way.” Tina holds a masters in DNA and serology. She works for Neogenomics in Fort Myers where she does molecular testing for can-
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cer. Someone from a non-dance background might think a passion for ballet and a passion for science are just about as opposite as you can get! However, as Tina points out, in dance “you have to be very analytical. There is a structure, and there are rules and discipline. But you have to be able to think outside the box and be creative to have a breakthrough in either field.” It’s been so long since Tina danced full time that it all feels very “nostalgic” to her now. “It’s been about 15 years since I danced professionally. I moved into social dancing where I started learning salsa, cha cha, and rumba and started competing in salsa. They are completely different techniques (ballet and social dancing)!” Social dancing is also how Tina first met her husband. When Tina was new to Naples, she googled the theatres around town to begin her research. “Of course, at first I drove by (TNP) like a weirdo,” she jokes. After further investigation, she says “The Naples Players has the highest quality productions I have ever seen. I just had to wait for the right play.
AN IDEAL HUSBAND
