THE LIFE OF DANCIN' KIM
From 1982 until her tragic death in 1988, Dancin' Kim Wood
thrilled audiences with the hottest new dances of the day on her
locally produced TV show, Totally Rad Dances with Dancin'
Kim! Shot in the back room of her mother's dance
studio, Totally Rad Dances aired on a handful of small
local television stations, mostly in the South and Midwest, usually
in the late night hours. All of the tapes of Totally Rad
Dances were believed to be lost, until November 2006, when a
box containing old VHS tapes of Dancin' Kim's show were discovered
in the basement of an abandoned house in St. Louis. Some of
these films are now exclusively available
on VideoJug.
After the disappearance of her husband, Dancin' Kim's mother Carol
Wood supported herself and her three daughters by opening a small
dance school in their hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.
In the 1960s, Carol Wood hosted a local dance TV show called
Dancin' Carol's Groovy Dance Happening!
Growing up in her mother's dance school, young Kim Wood could
"dance before she could walk", as friends said. Always eager
to learn the latest dances, Kim developed her talent with a
buoyant, almost manic, energy that was impossible to ignore.
Young Kim got her first taste of the spotlight in 1978, when the 13
year old won a local newspaper essay contest in which she delighted
readers by announcing that, when she grew up, she wanted to be
First Daughter Amy Carter, because she's "super neat". A
community letter writing campaign to bring Amy Carter to Charlotte
to meet young Kim succeeded, to a point. Amy Carter did visit
Charlotte, but sadly, Kim was unable to meet with her because she
was quarantined with the German measles.
The Big '80s were a perfect match for the unstoppable energy of
Dancin' Kim, and she embraced every new trend of that era with an
almost superhuman enthusiasm. From aerobics to Lambada: The
Forbidden Dance, Dancin' Kim was on the cutting edge of everything
that was hot and now in the 80s. She started hosting her show
in 1982, which was initially picked up by local stations in St.
Louis, Raleigh-Durham, and Vineland, New Jersey. Oddly, no
station in Charlotte picked up the show until 1984, when WCCB began
airing it at 6 am on Saturday mornings.
In 1986, Kim volunteered to be a local organizer for the Hands
Across America event. However, when she learned that path of
the cross-country human chain wasn't going anywhere near North
Carolina, Kim organized her own local version, Hands Across The
James K. Polk National Landmark.
Dancin' Kim's relentlessly upbeat energy led to rumors about her
rampant drug use, but her friends insist to this day that it's not
true. "Believe it or not," one friend said, "Kim's just high
on life." Of course, she's higher on life than anyone who
ever lived. Dancin' Kim seemed headed for major
stardom. However, her life was tragically cut short at the
age of 24 when she was killed in a freak accident at the
Mecklenberg County Fair when she was struck by a metal
clamshell-shaped car that disengaged from its moorings on the
Tilt-A-Whirl while Kim was giving an aerobics demonstration.
