Natalia Paruz is a New York native and an extremely famous Busker, her work and stories are featured in numerous magazines, articles, shows, movies, and even advertisements. Her journey into busking was a tragic yet inspiring tale.
Paruz started out as a dancer training with the Martha Garham Dance Company, her entire childhood revolved around dancing. One day, she was hit by a car coming out of Lincoln Center, and she was devastated, what else could she do? Her parents in an effort to cheer her up took her to Europe. This was her first interaction with the Saw; when she saw it played by a European Busker. She was immediately capitivated by the instrument, how it danced and how physical it was. It first was a hobby, teaching herself how to play the saw while working as an usher at a movie theater. During breaks she would practice outside the movie theater, in the nearby parking lot. And one day, a boy and his dad handed her five dollars, because they enjoyed her music. She ran inside to show her friends and colleagues what she got and they immediately dragged her outside to the theater next door and sat her down. As the show next door came to an end, she began to play, and that began her busking journey.
One of her experiments busking around the world, was to see if she could survive in another country without knowing the language and only off of busking. In Prague and the Czech Republic, she found that within 45 minutes, she had made friends and began to learn the language. People had begun to offer her couches to crash on, and she says that, the power of music, really brings people together.
“So it’s like dance, you know, it’s very physical, it’s very visual…I didn’t think that I was going to be a professional. It was just like a hobby at first.”
Natalie Paruz
Check out more of her work and story at her site! sawlady.com
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