Dance artist Irene Paci wanted more. She grew up, trained, and began her professional career just outside Florence, Italy. She has many wonderful things to say about the city’s dance community, but she craved more opportunity and more creative fire than the city could offer her.
That hunger for opportunity and artistic energy led her all over Europe, and now to New York City. She’s dancing, teaching, collaborating – taking in the fruits of the city and a life in motion. I had the pleasure of speaking with Paci over Zoom, learning more about her work and life as a committed, passionate artist.
Indeed, she came to the US to be part of more cool creative things happening, more often. “There are some good schools in Florence, but – compared to the US and other places in Europe – opportunities can be limited,” she explains. “It can take a lot of time to make projects happen [in Italy] – but in the US, people just go for it and make things!” She greatly appreciates that energy and courage to just do the thing, and all of the work that’s made in the US because of that.
Irene Paci ~ by Bill Wadman
New York bound
Yet, as one might imagine, starting a life in a whole new country was a sincere adjustment. She was accepted into the The Ailey School Professional Division’s 2015 cohort. Her parents came with her to support her in the move to NYC, but couldn’t stay forever. She vividly describes parting from them:
I started crying like a baby. All of a sudden I realized I would have been alone in a completely different country, in a city with millions of people, and there would have been a real ocean to part me from home. When I left my parents, I remember I was looking outside the yellow cab window and I felt tremendously small and scared. I didn't know the language very well, and I didn't know anyone besides a few friends from Paris. It was very hard.
She was shy at first, she explained, but soon gained friends – particularly those who were international dance students, like her. “Meeting people who were in the same situation helped me get the courage to face the fear and open up. I was able to share my doubts with them, and it was very helpful to have a community that was there to support me,” she shares.
It also wasn’t long until she was dancing in meaningful work; she danced in several projects while still a student. First was a duet with Adrien Picaut at the Ailey Citigroup Theater for the 2016 Edition of Global Harmony, an event featuring original choreography by selected students from the Ailey School Professional Division. Then she was selected again, for Darshan Singh Bhuller’s A curious dream for the 2017 January Explosion Concert (presented at the Baryshnikov Arts Center).
Paci in performance ~ courtesy of Paci
A few months later she performed in Brice Mousset’s Travailler for the 2017 Spring Concert at the Ailey Citigroup Theater. She certainly put in the work to perform at her best in these programs, sometimes staying until late at night in the studio to rehearse on her own – even after long days of classes. “Having Milton Mayers as a mentor during the creative process was an incredible gift,” she adds.
After graduating from the Ailey School, she danced in projects including the Sound of Arts Festival 2018, presented by Multicultural Sonic Evolution; Terra firma by Grazia Capri at Dixon Place; and the 17th anniversary of Tribute to Nina Simone, by TWW Inc & Friends at BAM Fisher, to name just a few. Speaking to her versatility and varied interests within dance, she also performed in Brittain Ashford’s Music Video I Could Have Danced All Night and in N’kialeko Dance Project’s video clip Leko Ler.
COVID strikes
COVID brought her back to Florence. She vividly describes the impact of COVID on the arts and on artists like her:
The COVID-19 pandemic had a sudden and substantial impact on the arts and cultural sector. Not only in Italy, but globally, the art scene was completely shut down. Most cultural institutions across the world were indefinitely closed, and in-person exhibitions, events, and performances were canceled or postponed. It was very hard for me and many other individuals in this sector who temporarily or permanently lost contracts or employment. I had to wait two years before getting my Visa approved, and this upended my life. …From theatre and dance to concerts, the world of culture tried to digitally reinvent itself.
For a time, it was nice to slow down and spend time with family. Then she was itching to create and perform again. Her only options were to dance in her room, without enough space to dance full out – and alone, without anyone to share her work with, which didn’t feel right to her. “When I was trying to improvise, it felt like there was no movement left in my body, I felt paralyzed. So I stopped,” she describes. Virtual dance classes helped, connecting her with “friends and artists around the world” – but, of course, it wasn’t quite the same as dancing together in the same space.
Yet an opportunity arose for her to dance in a music video, through a socially-distant process: for Marco Olivotto’s and Lorenzo Del Pero’s Vola il Corvo (Vrec Music Label). “The song is about the suffering, claustrophobic time we were living in,” Paci shares. Improvising to a nine-minute song, without professional recording equipment, was not easy. Yet ultimately, she found the experience quite rewarding; “this unique situation of complete solitude connected us. It made me think about how this new world disorder stimulated creativity and ideas perhaps unthinkable otherwise.”
Paci at the barre ~ by Whitney Janis
Once COVID restrictions could loosen to the point where dance could again be created and presented, she traveled all over Europe – dancing in different projects and in all different styles, as well as teaching. “We were still wearing masks, but to be in the studio and deliver dance to other people made me feel alive again,” she shares.
It was a transient artist lifestyle, staying in each place for not long and living out of a suitcase. “It was exciting, but it did get tiring,” she says with a little smile. On the other hand, that hustle is nothing new to her, she adds. She danced professionally while still in school, and that meant non-stop days of school to dance to bed, to then do it all over again the next day. Like with many artists, it seems like the love of the work – being immersed in creating and sharing – is fuel that’s kept her going through all of that intensity.
Paci also began Pilates instructor certification during COVID. She got certified to teach this year, after two years of study – “an intense, long process of self-discovery” for her. She decided to venture down that path when returning to NYC was not yet an option. “Initially, I was only taking classes as a client, but then Pilates turned into a passion….Coming from dance, Pilates brought me more awareness of my body, and it helped me with a better understanding of the weaker and strongest parts of my body. It truly was a life-changing discovery,” she shares.
Making her way back to New York City
“Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, it took me a long time to come back to the United States. Sometimes I still have a hard time processing how much those two years [of COVID] impacted my life and career,” Paci notes. She persisted, though, doing all that she could to get back; “I knew that in New York the dance scene would have been much more vibrant for me than in any other place. I had people who waited to work with me for so long, and I just couldn’t wait any longer to dance again,” she notes. Leaving her family again wasn’t easy – but she was determined to be in the place where she can truly grow: New York City.
She arrived back in New York City at the end of April of this year, and performed for the first time again in the US on May 15th – at the ESTIA Day Fest held at Salvatore La Russa Dance Center. Within days, she got to reconnect with dance friends and colleagues who she hadn’t seen since she left NYC in September 2019 – who welcomed her with “open arms.” She still feels welcome, and it still all feels right:
Somehow it feels like I never left. I returned to New York and I stepped into the stream of energy that’s here. It feels like it never stopped. It never missed me when I was gone, but it also didn’t begrudge me that I have been away. I am right back in it and I am very grateful for everything that is happening. Going back into the studio, and being able to share my dance with other people in the same space, brought me back to life and made my passion for dance alive again.
She’s currently still working with many different choreographers and on many different projects, but staying based in Greater NYC. This fall, she’ll be performing in several projects – including works by ProjectTAG NYC, Caterina Rago Dance Company and Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet, and Faustine LaVie Dance Project (at the TADA Theatre in Manhattan on October 14, 2022).
She’d love to work with Helene Simoneau Danse. “Seeing a few excerpts of her last project Delicate Power made me want to get to know her better. In her choreography, I saw a reflection of my search for movement that is both simple and complex, an intimate body language as an experience of universality,” Paci says.
Paci where she's meant to be ~ by Joerg Didlap
She would also love to dive deeper into Scenography, the design and creation of scenery. “As a dancer, I am very sensitive to the environment and spaces around me. I have always been affected by my surroundings, especially when performing,” she says. “I would love to learn more about the imagery, and reasons behind the visuals of theatre, and how they can impact performance.”
Looking towards the even more distant future, she hopes to keep being part of making good art. The US – and New York City more specifically – is the best place for her to do that, as far as she can see. “Here I have most of my work connections, I have my dance community, and I have a city that allows me to open many doors.” Whatever happens, her creative fire is not one that will be quenched too easily – and it’ll be exciting to see what it forges.