Moving to New York to Start Their Dance Careers

The normal deluge of recent college graduates moving to New York in the late spring and early summer slowed to a trickle this year. Between broad work-from-home policies and employers reluctant to extend job offers, many new grads elected to stay in the childhood homes they had moved back to in March, when college campuses shut down.

But Kimberly Chok and Olivia Passarelli, friends from Montclair State University in New Jersey who majored in dance, didn’t want to wait out the coronavirus to make a move to the city.

“A lot of our friends are waiting until next year, but we wanted to get a head start on our careers,” said Ms. Passarelli, 22, who is from Fairfield, Conn. “There isn’t really a market for what we do where our parents live.”

“We also wanted to take advantage of rents being lower now, so when companies start opening up again we can focus on auditioning versus trying to find a place and getting all our paperwork together,” said Ms. Chok, also 22, who grew up near Atlantic City, N.J.

But with much of their income coming from freelance work — in addition to dancing, Ms. Passarelli creates social media content and blogs about dance; Ms. Chok does French translation work, sells customized clothing on Depop and takes baking commissions — their rental budget was tight: $2,200 or less for a two-bedroom.

“The job market has been extremely challenging, so we had to get creative with our income,” Ms. Passarelli said. “We both want to find something more stable, and look for jobs every day, but there’s not much out there, especially for new college graduates.”

They also had to find an apartment large enough to take dance class at home, since studio practice is still out of the question.

But in the neighborhoods where they initially focused their search — the Upper East and Upper West Sides, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn — finding a two-bedroom within their budget was hard, let alone one with enough space to audition and take class.

“Our general impression was that in our budget everything was really small,” Ms. Passarelli said. “And in the neighborhoods where there were a lot of young people and nightlife, things in our budget were really not great. You either get the neighborhood with a lot going on or you get the apartment.”

Other Brooklyn neighborhoods like Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Bedford-Stuyvesant were more affordable, but still too expensive for them to get sufficient space. And while they didn’t have a pressing need to move by a particular date, at the end of a fruitless four-day push in August they were starting to think that maybe they would have to wait to move to the city, after all.

“We were exhausted and starting to feel like, ‘Is there a point behind this?’” Ms. Passarelli said.

They were feeling so defeated about their rental prospects after their fourth straight day of apartment hunting that they almost passed, sight unseen, on an apartment that Ms. Chok’s father told them about. It belonged to a family friend in Dyker Heights, a south Brooklyn neighborhood known for its spectacular Christmas displays.

Their expectations were so low that they didn’t bother to ask what the rent was before getting on the subway to see it that afternoon. When they arrived, however, they were amazed.

Compared with everything else they had seen, it was huge: an entire floor of a two-story house with a very large living room, a recently renovated kitchen and bathroom, ample closet space and two good-sized bedrooms. Perhaps best of all, the rent was the cheapest they had encountered: $1,750 a month, with utilities and Wi-Fi included.

$1,750 | Dyker Heights, Brooklyn

Kimberly Chok, 22, and Olivia Passarelli, 22

Occupation: Dancers; Ms. Passarelli has been dancing with a modern dance company in Hartford, Conn., and Ms. Chok does musical theater work and recently started taking some small acting gigs.
Taking class at home: “I’ve liked having the opportunity to try training in different styles,” Ms. Passarelli said. “It’s also been really interesting to take classes with people from all over the world in different time zones.”
Dyker Heights wasn’t initially on their radar: “But the space is really nice, and it works well for our situation,” Ms. Chok said.
On living together: “The main thing that surprised us was how well we get along,” Ms. Chok said, adding that they had expected a few hiccups as they adjusted to sharing a space. “But we get along great.”

It also had a piano, owned by the landlord, who lives in the downstairs unit with his wife — a nice perk for Ms. Chok, who plays the piano and is focusing on musical theater work. Ms. Passarelli does modern and contemporary dance, and recently started submitting videos of her work to choreography festivals.

“We knew we weren’t going to find something below our budget that was this much space again,” Ms. Passarelli said. They agreed to take it on the spot and moved in on Sept. 1.

They furnished the space with thrift-store finds and hand-me-downs from family friends, decorating with plants — they recently upgraded from fake plants to real ones — and 1980s Harvey Edwards dance posters borrowed from Ms. Passarelli’s mother, who runs a dance studio in Connecticut.

They share a desk in the living room, a space that is large enough for them to take class together once a week, when they do ballet with Breton Tyner-Bryan, a choreographer and dance teacher.

Having the landlord downstairs has also been nice — for handyman help, as well as laundromat and grocery store recommendations.

Ms. Chok is engaged in what she calls a “war of hospitality” with the landlord, which started when he brought the women and their families fruit platters while they were moving in. The next day, Ms. Chok carried down banana muffins she had baked to thank him. But then he left brown sugar boba Popsicles. Ms. Chok countered with cinnamon doughnuts. Grapes arrived in return and continue to show up. Ms. Chok is close to admitting defeat. She baked Halloween cupcakes, to which the landlord quickly responded with more Popsicles.

And while Dyker Heights may not be known for its nightlife, the women said that the neighborhood felt just right for them at this particular time.

“It’s very family-oriented and so quiet, it doesn’t even sound like a New York City neighborhood,” Ms. Passarelli said. “Obviously, everything is different because of the pandemic, but it’s a nice steppingstone into the city. It’s definitely homier than Manhattan.”

“And we both prefer a quiet, clean, spacious space over a younger, party-ish neighborhood,” Ms. Chok said. “We feel very, very fortunate. We had both expected moving to New York to be a harsher transition.”

And now, she added, they have some company: Several college friends moved to the city in October. To Bushwick, not Dyker Heights, but the subway is just a short walk away.