As a teenage dancer competing for a spot at the prestigious New York City Ballet, Georgina Pazcoguin was told by the company’s then-artistic director, Peter Martins, that she needed to lose weight: specifically in her thighs.
It was her first “fat talk.”
She was sent to a nutritionist who recommended a diet supplement that Pazcoguin likened to “chalk dust packets.” Dinner for the still-developing girl? A chicken breast and spinach or lettuce. Her daily caloric intake was 720 calories.
Shortly thereafter, the 9/11 attacks brought New York City to a standstill. Pazcoguin realized she couldn’t control the world — but she could control what she ate. For the next six months, she binged, purged and supplemented her rigorous dance sessions with swimming.
“It wasn’t sustainable,” Pazcoguin, now 36, told The Post. “I was a growing body. I picture my younger self and just want to give her a hug.”
Martins did not reply to requests for comment.
In her new memoir, “Swan Dive: The Making of a Rogue Ballerina,” (Henry Holt and Co.), Pazcoguin, who would later become the first Asian-American female soloist at NYCB (her father is Filipino and her mother is Italian), recalls the moment she realized how dangerous her diet was. While at the pool, she saw a painfully emaciated woman who looked in her 50s.
The ballerina realized in that moment that she would become that woman one day if she didn’t change her life.“She was suffering . . . My heart broke for her but it also broke for me. She was a wake-up call,” writes Pazcoguin.
That night, she cooked herself a New York strip steak for dinner.
It’s just one of the ways she learned to survive the cutthroat dance world, and her revelatory book is sure to ruffle some tutus.
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The Altoona, Pa., native — the daughter of an ER surgeon and a housewife — raises the curtain on her booze-soaked nights at an Upper West Side dive bar and hangover-induced spills. She exposes the male colleague who thought nothing of casually tweaking her nipples and admits to regrets over an affair she had with Candace Bushnell’s then-husband-dancer, Charles Askegard, that ended up on Page Six. (Pazcoguin doesn’t name him in the book.)
“My choices hurt people, and it’s something I will always be sorry about . . . My moral swan dive was featured in Page Six . . . I came into work, completely embarrassed. The whore was out of the bag,” she writes.
While most of the book’s action takes place at Lincoln Center, much of her younger days were spent at the Emerald Inn, an Upper West Side dive.
“I balance for a living. For me, life is a balance between the highbrow and the lowbrow existence,” she said.
After hours, Pazcoguin and fellow dancers would imbibe booze late into the night (“hard drugs were never my brand of fun,” she writes), soak up the toxins with pizza, then sleep a few hours before 10 a.m. classes.
“I’d be fighting my way through class with a headache and a bloated stomach,” she writes.
“A common misconception [about ballerinas] is that we’re all really straitlaced and boring. Absolutely no,” Pazcoguin said. “For as hard as we work, we also really enjoy a good time.”She wasn’t so thrilled when the top of her costume popped open during a production of “Swan Lake,” revealing both breasts as she twirled onstage.
To top it off, it happened during the company’s Gala Week, when she had to entertain big-bucks donors — like the inebriated patron who wanted to dance with her at a party.
“I was finding my groove . . . when wham bam thank you ma’am I was flat on my back on the goddamn floor with a drunk donor splayed out on top of me,” she writes.
Even though she stopped purging, Pazcoguin was haunted in her 20s by body issues. She claims she endured unwanted touching from fellow dancer Amar Ramasar, who, Pazcoguin writes, would whisper “you look fine today” and tweak her nipples. (Ramasar called the allegation “a total fiction.”)
“The constant objectification I was subjected to began to take a toll on my psyche,” she writes.
Pazcoguin secretly had liposuction, removing the equivalent of a two-liter bottle of soda from her thighs.
“It’s not something I am proud of now,” she said. “I was asked to do something absurd [lose weight], so the only thing that made sense was an absurd solution.”
A common misconception [about ballerinas] is that we’re all really straitlaced.
Georgina pazcoguin
She felt she had no recourse against harassment because, she writes, telling Martins about Ramasar would be like “complaining to Satan about his brother Hades.”
Martins retired in 2018 amid accusations of sexual harassment, which he has denied. Ramasar was fired by NYCB in 2018 after being accused of sharing a sexually explicit photo of a colleague, but later reinstated.
Asked if she has had any contact with Martins since he left the company, Pazcoguin answered: “I have no desire.”
But Pazcoguin has found another way to stand up for herself. She and fellow Asian dancer Phil Chan launched a diversity initiative called “Final Bow for Yellow Face,” which advocates against stereotypical depictions of Asians.
“I am a multicultural woman embracing my Asian heritage. When I was growing up [in dance] studios, there was never anyone who really looked like me in the classroom or on the wall. It impacted me more than I thought it did,” she said.
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On Aug. 3, she will return to the NYCB and the book will have been released for all, including her peers, to read.
“It’s so easy for people to jump to conclusions that this is me trying to do something negative. Yes, there are negative aspects, but I am not trying to do something negative about the ballet world,” she said. “I am trying to shine a light and share my absolute and utter devotion to ballet. And even through all of this, I still love the art form.
Photos: René Cervantes; Stylist: Elise Sandvik/See Mgmt; Hair: Hailei Call; Makeup: Ehlie Luna; Location: Ten Grand Street/One South First, Domino Park
