Irina Pauls received her dance training at the Palucca Schule Dresden and then studied choreography at the “Hans Otto” Theatre Academy in Leipzig. In 1985 she was appointed ballet director at the Landestheater Altenburg in Thuringia. In 1990 she founded the TanzTheater at Schauspiel Leipzig, which was closed in 1998 due to cost-cutting measures. After a two-year stay in the USA financed by a scholarship, she took over the Tanztheater in Oldenburg in 1998 and became director of the dance department at the Stadttheater Heidelberg in 2000. After working as director of the dance theatre cooperation between the theatres in Freiburg and Heidelberg from 2004, she returned to Leipzig in 2007 as artistic director of the Leipzig Dance Theatre. Since 2009 she has been a freelance choreographer in Leipzig, at the theatre junge generation in Dresden, at the Mozarteum Salzburg, at the Moradokmai Theatre Company in Thailand and at the annual OrffTanz workshop of the Carl Orff Foundation.