We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carol Malak. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carol below.

Alright, Carol thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I grew up taking dance classes and always loved performing at our year end performances or showing my family the dances I learned. When I was in college, I was dancing and choreographing more and realized how much creative freedom I could have in the art and how therapeutic dance was becoming for me. I was going through something once in college and instead of letting it get me down, I poured all of my emotions into a piece I was choreographing for my dance team. We were performing in the halftime show for our school’s biggest football game of the season. I decided to take some risks with the piece and incorporate ideas that were out of the ordinary for me. The performance ended up being a huge success and the way I felt performing on the field in front of our entire school and on national tv was so fulfilling and exciting. From then on, I started to explore more of my own movement and after college, went to NYC to train at a more professional level and dive deeper into the dance industry.

Carol, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born and raised in Stamford, CT but my family is originally from Lebanon. My parents first put my sister and me in ballet when I was a child. Back then, I didn’t have as much of an appreciation for ballet (now I absolutely love it), and I always felt drawn to hip hop dance. My studio at the time offered one hip hop class per week but you had to be at least 14 years old and I was still around 10. I ended up taking a break from dance classes and tried team sports and martial arts. While doing this, I was actively finding ways to learn hip hop dance, whether it was joining the dance team at my middle school, or signing myself up for talent shows and creating dances inspired by what I had observed from music videos or what my older sister would learn after she joined the hip hop class at our dance studio. In high school, I finally found a different studio that offered more hip hop classes and fell even more in love with it. After college and training for several years in NYC and post-Covid, I took the leap of faith and decided to move to Los Angeles to take my training and career to the next level. It was only after I moved to Cali that I also started to explore my brand, incorporating my Arab culture, and truly appreciating where I come from. It has given me even more purpose and opportunities to work with other Arab artists while I continue to navigate the dance industry and build my repertoire to unlock new milestones, perform on larger stages, and work with more renowned choreographers and artists. I am grateful for how far I’ve come out here, I love dance even more for helping me recognize the pride I have for my heritage and how it sets me apart in the industry and I am excited to see where this career takes me next!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

A few of my favorite books that have given me different perspectives on life overall and shifted my mindset include: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. Hands down some of the best, most insightful books I’ve read to date. I also love watching interviews and talks with Kobe Bryant speaking on Mamba Mentality and applying that approach to my discipline, training and everyday life.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, I am in love with witnessing the full lifecycle of an idea that comes to life. So how it usually will go for me is being drawn to a particular song or concept I think of, then allowing that to expand and flourish in my mind so I’m able to get started with some sort of blueprint. Then from there, scouting locations to help visualize how the vision will go, choreographing and building out the concept through movement, rehearsing with others to see how the choreography might translate on other dancers’ bodies, and then finally bringing it altogether at the chosen shoot location and directing how the video should go to really capture the full vision. Going through that process, then seeing what started off as just a small idea in my mind turn into a full visual that I can share with others is truly something special and so rewarding to me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carol_malak/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Carolmalak
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@carol_malak

Image Credits
RJ Lewis Emily Gauthier