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At 16, Georgina Pazcoguin left her family and Altoona home to pursue her dream of dancing ballet in the Big Apple.
he was determined to study at the prestigious School of American Ballet after being invited for the third time to study year-round following summer sessions.
“The first time I was asked to stay, New York was too much for me,” she said. “The second year, my mom wasn’t ready. The third year was the charm.”
But it was a rocky start: Her first day of high school classes was on Sept. 11, 2001.
“My baby was in New York City on 9/11, and we had no idea where she was for three hours,” said Cheryl Pazcoguin, who still lives in the Highland Park area home where her daughter grew up. “I pleaded with her to come home, but she said, ‘No. The world needs art now more than ever.'”
Gina, as she is known among friends and family, went on to finish her apprentice training at the “official school” of the New York City Ballet. She was hired for its corps de ballet in 2003 and was promoted to soloist in 2013. She began exploring other art forms in 2015 when she made her Broadway debut in the revivial of “On the Town.”
Earlier this year, at 31, Gina landed the highly visible role of Victoria in the anticipated revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic, “Cats,” on Broadway.
“This is special to be a part of this revival,” she said.
But her mother didn’t realize what a “big deal” that was until she went to the July 31 opening at the Neil Simon Theatre on 52nd Street.
“This is ‘Cats,'” said Cheryl. “It’s a big deal. She’s part of something pretty big.”
Before the show opened, Gina said she had quick moments to process her newest role. Since it opened to rave reviews – she doesn’t read the good ones or the bad ones – she has been too busy to think much about it.
“We are so, so tired. We had a five-show weekend,” she said on a recent Monday morning. “But it’s a blast. I’m having the time of my life.”
In the beginning
Georgina Pazcoguin (paz KO gen) was born on Dec. 17, 1984 in Altoona. Her father, Silvino, who goes by Ben, had immigrated from the Philippines to finish his residency work for medical school. He found his way to Altoona and its Veterans Administration hospital, where he later practiced as a U.S. Army surgeon before retiring. There, he met Cheryl, a nurse, who became a stay-at-home mother to eventually six children.
Gina was the fourth one and showed some early signs of what would come. Her favorite toy as a child was a stuffed cat, but she grew up to be a dog person and today has a black Labrador mix named Jett.
She grew up watching a VHS tape of the film “Cats” and its first run on Broadway, but she always thought dance – not theater – was her destiny.
Cheryl signed Gina up for ballet lessons with the Allegheny Ballet Company at the age of 4; her first recital was at the age of 5.
“My mom has total credit for that. I knew I wanted to perform, be on stage,” said Gina.
Within four years, she made it to ABC’s annual “Nutcracker” performance, and promptly fell while dancing on the Mishler Theatre stage, according to Cheryl.
“She got right back up,” said her mother. ABC principal and founder Deborah Anthony, who could not be reached for this story, told Cheryl, “That’s a sign of a true performer.”
“Her birthday was right after that,” Cheryl recalled. “I got her a stuffed white cat.”
Gina attended elementary school at Our Lady of Lourdes and, when it closed, at St. Rose of Lima.
“I remember that she was a very quiet student but really a hard worker,” said Nancy Christy, Gina’s second-grade teacher. “As far back as I could remember, she was always dancing, whether in a school talent show or ‘The Nutcracker’ at the Mishler.
“I’m always happy to hear about her success. And, I look forward to her next success.”
Early success
Before she was a teenager, Gina was getting noticed as a talented dancer. She was getting more and more lead roles at ABC, which has sent a number of successful dancers to professional careers in New York and beyond.
When Gina was 12, her parents sent her to summer training at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet in Carlisle, and no summer was the same afterward.
When she was 14, her parents took her to an audition in Pittsburgh for entry into the School of American Ballet. Not only did she get accepted, she won a scholarship and later was asked, for the first time, to stay for full-time studies. But she wasn’t ready.
When she returned to New York City the following summer, she was asked again.
“They called us in, and they wanted her to stay,” Cheryl said. “I said no. ‘She’s not 16 yet.'”
Gina returned to Altoona for one more year at Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic High School and Allegheny Ballet Company. The following spring of 2001, she performed her final recital for ABC, as noted in a thick scrapbook that Cheryl kept.
“So it ends,” reads an entry. “I’m going to cry,” Cheryl said.
Moving time
The following August, Gina’s parents helped her move into a dormitory at SAB. Two weeks later, she was to start her high school classes at the Professional Performing Arts School, which accommodates students also in training for the arts.
It was Sept. 11. Cheryl was in a Pittsburgh hospital where her mother was undergoing open-heart surgery. When she saw the news of the terrorist attack, she phoned her husband to go to New York and bring Gina home.
“I was doing surgery at the VA hospital,” Ben said. “I couldn’t go. Plus there was no way to get into the city.”
School officials had ushered students to safety; relatives then took Gina to New Jersey for a few days. But she returned to the city and her studies and began developing relationships with people who would become her friends.
“I don’t even think of it as courage,” Gina said. “I just knew ballet was what I wanted to study, and to get the best training, New York City, particularly SAB, was where I needed to study. That was where my life was taking me. I was surrounded by now-close friends who were all in the same boat with me – leaving family, growing up in the city, experiencing 9/11 so intensely – so we all held each other together.”
Career start
After her apprenticeship year at SAB, during which she earned her high school diploma, Gina won the Wien Award for Outstanding Promise. Her high school counselors encouraged her to go to college, but she was dedicated to dancing, Cheryl said.
In 2003, Gina went to work for New York City Ballet, one of the top five ballet companies in the world. She played character roles such as Coffee the Arabian princess in “The Nutcracker” and Carabosse in “The Sleeping Beauty.”
She traveled to Tokyo, China, Europe and elsewhere with the ballet company and on some private engagements. She was cast in a Paul McCartney collaboration in 2011 called “Ocean’s Kingdom.” She played Anita in “West Side Story Suite,” in which she sang on stage for the first time; she has taken voice lessons off and on since 2004.
“When this dark-haired girl came on stage and started singing, I didn’t know who she was.” Cheryl said, recalling the performance.
But it took Gina 10 years to get promoted from the corps to soloist, and she doubted herself at times along the way, she told Dance Magazine, which put her on its cover after her 2013 promotion.
Versatile and relentless
“Pazcoguin has built a reputation as a versatile and a charismatic perfomer, and a hard worker with a relentless drive to improve,” it wrote. “A lightning quick study, she is eager to take corrections and is sometimes referred to as ‘the sponge.’ She may also be the most theatrical dancer in the company.”
That was prescient.
By 2015, she was on Broadway, as Miss Turnstiles in the short run of “On the Town.”
This year, she decided to audition for “Cats.” When she landed the role of Victoria, she took a leave of absence from City Ballet.
Preview shows resulted in mostly positive reviews, but Gina said “the main thing to remember is that this show is built around an ensemble cast” whose roles are based on characters from T.S. Eliot’s book, “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”
“Yes, there are principal characters, but we all play an essential part in guiding you through this journey of the Jellicles, and even more importantly, our own characters’ journey to find redemption and acceptance,” Gina said. “This is a lesson I hope more people take away from the show.”
Opening week, Gina was featured in the New York Times and on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” and she had two other media interviews on the day she spoke with the Mirror by phone for this story.
Long days
That same day, Gina had two photo shoots and was undergoing her routine physical therapy, chiropractic and accupuncture sessions to keep her body in tune. She said she would get to the theater by about 5 p.m. for the 7 p.m. show. Some days, there are understudy rehearsals; every day, she warms up her body and her voice, gets dressed and applies her own makeup, which alone takes 30 minutes. There are quick rehearsals to run through before curtain call.
After the nearly three-hour show – and if there aren’t post-show parties or out-of-town visitors to mingle with – Gina goes home to her Upper West Side apartment, which she now shares with her sister, Christina, an aspiring actress. At least every other night, Gina takes an Epsom salt bath to soak her tired body; she also makes sure that she eats healthy to keep fueled, she said.
She listens to hard rock – including Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever” – and surfs when she can.
Although “Cats” has an open run, Gina is signed to only a six-month contract. She said she isn’t finished with City Ballet, but don’t ask what her definitive plans for the future are.
“I don’t know what I’m having for dinner,” she said with a laugh. (She got her New York real estate license as a backup plan).
Gina said she tries to get back home every Christmas, but that won’t happen this year with the “Cats” schedule.
“I never anticipated life with so much opportunity,” she said. “Now is time for work and focus. We’re working toward our goals … Just to be happy as an artist and grow as a person. I’m always looking for a challenge.”
When asked if she is a diva, Gina laughed again.
“I wouldn’t call myself a diva, but maybe I’m not the right person to ask,” she said.
Her parents may not be either, and they also don’t think the title fits.
“She’s very tenacious and she has a head on her, but she doesn’t brag,” Ben said.
“She never compared herself to other people. It was her progress, what she was doing,” Cheryl said. “She’s very hard on herself.”
Gina calls herself “The Rogue Ballerina,” which comes from an old nickname “black tutu.”
“It’s a long story. You’ll have to wait for the memoir,” she added with another laugh.
But she never fit the “quintessential idea of a ballerina,” she said.
“It comes from a constant uphill battle with this art form and those tests and challenges presented to me along the way, myself included as a hinderance,” she said. “I’ve created my own path, as most do. I’m finally accepting myself for who I am and embracing that even though I may not fit one’s theoretical idea of a ballerina, I am indeed one and am proud of being different.”
And she has a message for young aspiring dancers in Altoona and anywhere:
“Nothing worth achieving comes easy. Don’t expect things to be handed to you, and meet the challenges life presents head on.”
You can follow Georgina Pazcoguin at her website, www.GeorginaPazcoguin.com or follow her on Facebook and other social media.
Mirror Staff Writer Cherie Hicks is at 949-7030.