Next up in our Crumb Focus series is the beautiful PATRICIA ZHOU (75.4k Followers); Freelance Dancer, Movement Director and Crumb Human based out of London and LA. Patricia is available for fashion campaigns, content creation and brand partnerships.
Trained at the Kirov Academy in Washington D.C., Patricia became a Prix de Lausanne prizewinner in just four years of training. Patricia danced at The Royal Ballet, Staatsballett-Berlin, and L.A. Dance Project, before becoming a freelance dancer in 2019 to pursue creating her own work. Though Patricia comes from a ballet background, she applies a contemporary view to classical techniques. She has worked with choreographers such as Ohad Naharin, Nacho Duato, Benjamin Millepied, Hofesh Schecter, Charm LaDonna, Jacob Jonas, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui amongst many others.
This has allowed her to work and dance in many different styles, which she believes are complimentary to her ballet experience. Patricia has done choreography as well as direction for dance films of her own. She hopes to bring dance and joy of movement to a bigger audience through her teaching platform (launched in 2020) and grow awareness of dance as a story-telling medium through her films. Past commercial clients include Rodarte and Free People Movement, Beyond Yoga and Set Active and press with Into The Gloss, Lampoon Magazine and L'Officiel China.
We spoke with Patricia to find out about her inspirations, motivations and hopes for 2022 :)
Love,
Crumb x
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what motivates you most?
My name is Patricia, although most friends call me Pat. I am a professional dancer as well as a movement director, choreographer and filmmaker.
I danced full-time with the Royal Ballet, Staatsballett-Berlin, and L.A. Dance Project before starting to pursue more freelance dancing, commercial and modeling work a couple years ago.
I am most passionate about creating dance films for the digital age that can be shared/viewed online. I think it is so important for classical dance to keep evolving with the times. With the internet being so accessible to almost everyone, I hope my narrative dance films, telling stories of contemporary people, can draw in fresh audiences and help to create a renaissance for dance in mainstream media and culture.
What has been your proudest moment so far in your career?
The proudest moment of my career so far was creating my online teaching platform, PatriciaZhou.Online, during COVID.
I started offering free ballet classes everyday on IG Live from Day 1 of the pandemic and taught almost every day for 10 weeks. There were 70-100 people that joined me each class.
At one point I thought, maybe I could turn this in to an actual business and offer classes that people can
do from their homes at any time they want.
A year and a half later, I am still offering 5 new classes a week to my community of students all over the world. I pre-record the classes which allows people to tune in on their own schedule, but also allows me a lot of flexibility too.
It really showed me that I can rely on myself and gave me the confidence to create my own work.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to break into ballet?
Go for it and don’t get discouraged.
Ballet is so based on the strive for this unattainable perfection. However, I like to take a more holistic approach and encourage people to do their best, enjoy that struggle, and be okay with how they’ve done and where they are.
I think the need to be perfect can put a lot of people off, but I always say that being there and showing up really is the most important thing.
Lastly, everyone has their own special way of moving, I try to nurture that instead of trying to get everyone to look the same. Where’s the fun in that?!
What do you hope to achieve in 2022?
I really want to choreograph my first piece set specifically for stage as until this point I’ve choreographed solely for camera.
I also would love to keep being challenged to create different things, have new experiences and learn new ways of moving. I’ve always been scared of trying new things, but I’m really feeling excited about seeing what I can do this year if I put my mind to it.
What was the last song you listened to, and the last book you read? :)
The last song I listened to was probably the PNAU remix of “Cold Heart” with Dua. Last book was “The Beekeeper of Aleppo” by Christy Lefteri which I read whilst accidentally burning my legs on the beach in Puerto Escondido.
