How Crisis Can Lead You to Unexpected But Exciting Paths

Thinking about pursuing a career in medicine, law, nursing, engineering, or architecture can be perfectly normal for someone in high school. But thinking about artistic careers may be somewhat less common or perhaps not even thought about. This happened to Lorena Diez, born in Mar del Plata in Argentina who, following her life plan, studied architecture.

Lorena Diez, who graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, now is a fashion lover, tango dancer, and teacher, and organizes milongas and festivals as well as touring the world as a costume coordinator with the international company Tango Lovers. But what must happen in your life to change your goal of being an architect for a new dream of being an artist?

SKILLED BY HERITAGE

Lorena inherited her love for sewing from her mother, venturing into clothing design as a hobby from a young age. While in college, she took a couple of tango classes which created in her an appetite to go deeper into this exquisite art from Rio de la Plata.

The economic crisis in Argentina became so critical that she had to leave her university studies with just one year left to graduation. With there being no immediate chances of economic recovery, she was tempted by the American dream and migrated to the United States in an effort to reverse her family situation.

LONGING FOR THE HOME LAND

Once established in Miami, she began to interact with the local tangueros trying to fill the void she had for being far from her family and her country. Seeing the need to make tango grow in Miami, Lorena decided to return to Argentina to specialize, took super intensive classes and in six months she managed to reach advanced levels that would allow her to develop further in her new passion. Upon her return to Miami, between classes and performances she realized that locally there was no clothing line specialized in tango and with the experience her mother gave her, Lorena began to design clothes for the milonga dancers. In 2010 she launched her exclusive SurReal Designs clothing line for tango while participating and organizing events for the tango community in South Florida.

ONE PLUS ONE EQUALS THREE

Lorena persisted in pursuing a degree to validate her artistic streak and was able to graduate with honors from the University of Florida. Her knowledge of tango, her specialization in costume design and the structured skills acquired through her studies led her to be part of a world class production team as costume coordinator, responsible for the costumes for the entire Tango Lovers company. She has toured with Tango Lovers cities she never thought to visit, halting this year 2020 only because of the pandemic. It is more than what Lorena expected from something that began as a hobby but with her dedication and her knowledge, she achieved an exciting career that she appreciates and enjoys very much.

GIVE YOUR BEST FACE DURING BAD TIMES

Despite the global crisis created by the pandemic, and with the difficulty of social isolation, Lorena Diez decided to do something that had never been done before and organized in July 2020 the first online tango festival which she named Quarantango, managing to raise funds for her 20 fellow dance teachers from South Florida.

None of this was in Lorena’s original plans, but the sum of her experiences, her own life story and her entrepreneurial nature led her to turn crises into a path that fills her with satisfaction and personal and professional achievements.

Crisis challenges human being’s comfort zones and its thanks to these situations that the world can evolve taking people to other levels which were never imagined before.

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