Dreams come true and Valeria Pérez knows that, who trained at a US academy.
With the halo of a youth that does not stop enveloping her, Valeria Pérez came to the conclusion that she should not stop dreaming big or resign herself to forgetting her desires.
This is how he began to tell his story at a moment that became special; when she took a break from her tasks that have her as a university student and she remembered that moment that she took her to fly to dance at the Vassiliev Academy of Classical Ballet in Brooklyn, in the United States.
Only days are left for the figure of women to be celebrated worldwide; and Valeria replaced with words what actually happened to her. So with a feeling of longing, she shared her experiences outside the country.
When she was only five years old, she started her journey in “Nuevo Estudio”, a space where she spent ten years of her life, learning classical dance thanks to the director and teacher Emilce Amalia Scilingo. She received an artistic education that she transferred to the cultural apparatus and gave her the first step to adventure.
Thanks to a talent in body expression that made her stand out on stage at the age of 13, she was able to obtain different scholarships for her specialization. Until the day came when one of them brought with her the possibility of training in a prestigious artistic institution, but located in New York.
“It was very exciting because I received the scholarship in a contest in Salta, representing the ‘Nuevo Estudio'”, he revealed. And then the doors of the Vassiliev Academy of Classical Ballet in Brooklyn began to open for her.
“I didn’t plan to go, I saw it as a distant dream that I was going to fulfill later. But Emilce Scilingo convinced me and that’s where it all started,” explained the young woman.
Among notes presented to government entities and raffles, a solidarity presentation was added at the Miter theater to collaborate with the money for tickets. “Kind people helped and I’m still very grateful,” she commented, moved by this good fortune that placed her on the crest of the dance and that she was lived together with the unconditional company of her mother.
2017 was the year of the first trip, but a second came in 2018 and a third, in 2020. And each time different from the previous one, but in all, with stays of three months in NYC.
“In two of the three trips to the United States, I was accompanied by my mother and the third, I did it alone. In the first I was stunned because it was the first time I had traveled outside the country and by plane,” she explained.
And when she arrived at the Vassiliev Academy of Classical Ballet -Russian Academy of Classical Dance-, everything was spectacular for Valeria. As time went by, the anecdotes and learnings multiplied, more. “The last trip was the longest, because it was when the coronavirus pandemic began,” said the woman from Jujuy that she made new friends from different countries and with whom during the quarantine stage, they became inseparable. “There were moments in which I felt bad for being away from my loved ones, without knowing how or when I was going to return to the country, but my colleagues managed to make everything laugh,” said the dancer who had to adapt to a rigorous discipline . “We had to be two hours before class and leave late for rehearsals. Classes started at 9 in the morning and the subway took an hour to arrive. The break lasted half an hour,” recalled Pérez, who attended training classes, contemporary, modern and jazz.
Every day was considered a new challenge and that encouraged her to keep going, even exceeding the expectations of her teachers. However, due to the pandemic and the economic situation, she had to return to Argentina. “I fulfilled the isolation and with my mother who brought me food every day. When I saw her, I started crying but I couldn’t hug her, so we just greeted each other at the door,” said the woman from Jujuy who had finally come home . Although she did not return to the United States, she understood that as an experience she turned out to be the best, feeling the dance in another country.
“Each person I met plays a very important role in my life; that of a mother, that of an older sister, that of a friend. They are important to me and I have great affection and appreciation for them,” revealed Pérez, who is currently studying She has a degree in Administration and Public Accounting from the Faculty of Economic Sciences and she can’t imagine her life without stopping dancing because that makes her very happy.
