Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Aurélie Garcia. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Aurélie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I first started dancing in France, in a small town dance school “Centre Artistique de la Danse Cydrille Girard”, after I graduated from High School I was accepted at The Ailey School, a very selective professional dance program in NY – which is how I ended up coming to the United States in September 2015. I would say that what I need to work on the most is to prioritize time for me to develop my own business instead of offering all my time and energy to help other’s to develop their business. But as an artist, I would say that my versatility, open mind, hard working and dedicated personality have been essential to my achievements.
The biggest obstacle in the way of learning more is the cost of courses and sometimes the language barrier that makes it challenging to understand specific nuances, even if now fluent, I find certain nuances sometimes still difficult to express or understand when the person across does not have the same first language as yours.

Aurélie, 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?

Since I have been in New York, I worked with plenty of dance compagnies with very different styles, which helped me develop my diversity as a professional dancer and artist. With Ntrinsik Movement, mixing African Dance with Modern Dance, with Bloodline Dance Theatre, mixing African Dance and Ballet, with Ann Nuo Spiritual Dance, mixing traditional Chinese dance with contemporary, with Emphasis Entertainment, commercial dance, with Ballet Hipanico mixing modern, contemporary, ballet and different traditional hispanic dances, with OCA Dance exploring the fusion of afro-latin culture with contemporary and some more versatility and learning with Vanessa Long Dance, Alison Cook Beatty Dance, Faustine Lavie Dance project and now with MOMIX, becoming an athlete dancer illusionist. My speciality as a professional dancer is Modern Dance and Contemporary but I have became a very versatile dancer thanks to all the meaning full experience that allowed me to open my artistic spectrum.
As an artist and dancer, I am known to always bring something extra, special to the audience, I am dedicated, adaptative, smooth to work with, always looking forward to learn more and generous with my artistry and knowledge.
Aware that not everyone has the same chance to be living from their passion, I am very proud of what I have been able to achieve staying faithful to my heart and passion.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

To me, being able to offer people an escape to their routine, to let them dream and being transported in the world we are presenting through a performance is a very rewarding aspect of being and artist and creative. The human part of this work field is what I love the most. Art is the most universal language, using our senses to transmit a message, an emotion, a story, an idea, something we are trying to fight for.. And more specifically, for a dancer, through our body movement and expression. When I receive from the audience feedbacks such as, it was like a dream, I feel like you were looking at me, you were giving so much, you made me laugh, you made cry, I saw my story through your dance or any human sensation, then, I am satisfied. My goal is to share my gift and be the most generous possible, so the audience can just let go and jump into the world we are offering as an artist.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

First of all, the performing art is very competitive, with an immense amount of talented people which make finding ones self place in the working world very challenging. You have to make the difference in order to be the one offered with an opportunity. A lot of auditions might result with a failure but you have to keep pushing until the right audition in the right time will give you access to the job of your dreams. In addition to the competition, being an immigrant dancer in the United States is a challenge, a lot of compagnies can only hire an immigrants with the proper paperworks to work, but in order to receive the proper paperworks to work you need to prove excellent artistry and talent through work experiences, rewards, etc.
As a dancer, what we are precautious the most about is to prevent injuries, it takes us a lot of time and effort to make sure our body is straying in good shape and health to be able to perform our arts to the fullest and on the long therm.
What is also very difficult as a professional artistic that tours around the world, is to be away from your loved ones fro a long period of times and sometimes missing very important events you wished you could be present for.
Being a professional dancer is a wonderful carrier but it also comes with a lot of sacrifices and hard work.
I am very thankful that I have been able to have so many professional experiences and opportunities for me to be able to share my art. I am currently on a European tour with MOMIX, sharing my artistry with more than thousands audience members.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @aureliiegarcia

Image Credits
The Dancing Image Deto Noel Valero Daigo. G Nir Arieli