Concha Jareño, flamenco bailaora. Interview
“I didn’t want to
be the best one in the dance corps all my life”
Silvia Calado. Madrid, April 2009
Feature.
The bata de cola according to Concha Jareño
It wasn’t the first time
in the least that she’d danced at Festival de Jerez.
But she was premiering the first show of her own. Concha
Jareño put on ‘Algo’ at the
Sala Compañía. And with that show, which reflects
the bailaora’s struggle to create a discourse of her
own, she won the 2009 Revelation Prize. Some weeks later,
just an ordinary midday in spring feeling more like winter,
at a tavern near Amor de Dios, the Madrilenian bailaora
takes a look back and ahead. Blocks, awards, collaborations,
Rafaela Carrasco, fabrics, films, batas de cola, Dospormedio,
losses, investments, Juan Simón, uncertainty…
And it’s surprising how much she has achieved, but
also how hard it is to keep on going.
I know you doubted whether to take
‘Algo’ or ‘Simplemente flamenco’
to Festival de Jerez…
Yes, but I convinced myself right away
that if people didn’t like ‘Algo’ it wasn’t
because it was more or less alternative, but because it
was just plain bad. I thought that if it was criticized
it was because it wasn’t worthwhile. I know where
the ideas are. My husband always tells me I have to be honest.
And it isn’t that taking a traditional flamenco format
to Jerez would’ve been a mistake; what would’ve
been a mistake is not to take what you really want to take
in order to try and please others. My husband helps me a
great deal; let’s just say that we put together the
show’s intellectual concept between the two of us.
Paco (Arasanz) makes films, is a scriptwriter, right now
he’s doing a series for the Internet. I have that
support there. The start of the show, in fact, arose with
him at an airport. I was going away to teach a course and
we were talking about my being blocked and my boredom. And
I decided to tell what was happening to me there. It was
something in common. I went away to Taiwan, he stayed in
Madrid, and it all came during that trip.
‘Algo’ is, as you explained
in the catalogue of Festival de Jerez 2009, the response
to the “block bailaores end up falling into for fear
of not believing in ourselves”…
Absolutely. It’s a sensation and
a situation I found myself in for a time, of feeling that
what you’re doing no longer fills you, but at the
same time you don’t think you’re capable of
doing more. It doesn’t happen to everyone; there are
people who have a lot more self-confidence or they gain
that confidence in time. I recognize that I don’t
have the same self-confidence now as three years ago. Because
I’ve taken the plunge and I’ve suddenly seen
that I’m capable of doing a show and developing it.
But when you’ve never done it, you can stay there
all your life. My husband, who has a very dark sense of
humor, asked me if I wanted to be the best one in the dance
corps all my life. And he was right. This is the real case
of many people who are doing things for other people and
they don’t take this other step forward. And then
there are people who have that need from the very start
to tell everything and they’re free internally from
the beginning.
And why do you think you were blocked
like that?
I don’t know. I’ve always been
very prudent. And I’ve been really afraid of doing
things wrong or not showing them due respect. I don’t
consider myself an insecure person. It’s out of prudence
and because you go with the flow and before you know it,
you’ve missed the boat.
But you did feel the need to do
something of your own, didn’t you?
In reality, I’ve always been choreographing
things all my life. I’ve always had the need to be
active. Many years ago my parents used to have a mid-sized
place they didn’t use. Together with Alfonso
Losa, the two of us just kids, imagine, I entered a
sevillanas contest and we won 200,000 pesetas and with my
share of the money I set up the place with its mirrors and
its floor and I’ve spent half my life there inside.
The need’s been there; it was never a question of
going to have my class and come home.
From the outside, your so peculiar
body language stands out. Is it intentional?
I don’t notice it. It’s what
has the most impact on me when I read reviews. I don’t
find that I’m different or peculiar. I might detect
if the show is interesting or not. I have always fought
not to be like anyone else, not just to be personal. We’re
all like someone else at some time in our career. And it’s
logical because you have to have somewhere to look to.
And who has that happened to you
with?
It happened to me many years ago with Eva
Yerbabuena. I was hardly even professional yet; I was
taking classes and rehearsing all day long. I liked her
a lot; it was her absolute boom. And I was like her. But
I was excited about it, I was a kid and I used to say how
great, how I resemble her. Later on, when I started working
with Rafaela
Carrasco - we’re physically very different and
I think it’s hard for us to resemble one another -,
but there was a time when I felt I had that vocabulary.
And when I began doing things solo, I did fight not to use
it, because it was very natural for me. I don’t know
Eva, I haven’t worked with her, but I have with Rafi.
I’ve learned two shows of hers: ‘La música
del cuerpo’ and ‘Una mirada del flamenco’.
I’ve worked with many companies, but the one I’ve
had continuity with is hers. And now I don’t know,
am I like anyone?
Doing ‘La
música del cuerpo’ must have been hard,
wasn’t it? The use of the silences in that show was
really impressive …
It demanded a lot of concentration. The
first piece was in five-four time, which nobody had ever
done before because we flamencos always have the same times.
I was the one who started the show and the five-four, a
real responsibility … None of us could move because
it could have been a disaster, but at the same time, we
were dancing.
Might that company’s musical
performance have stuck to you?
Yes, I think it’s something I’ve
learned from it. It’s very musical. In the first piece
of ‘La música del cuerpo’, which was
the one we took to the Choreography Contest, it decided
that each person was an instrument. I was the guitar, Olga
Pericet was the cello, a boy was the tablas… I
was put with the guitar for a day and I was set up note
by note, shoulder, foot. I probably have absorbed that concept.
For example, the piece ‘Algo’ is a lot like
that, it’s full of details, I see something in each
note by Canito.
A peculiar sensation of well-roundedness
can be made out in each of your choreographies. How do you
focus building pieces like the milonga in ‘Algo’?
I suffered a lot with the milonga. As a
bailaora I need to be given music, to be given ideas, even
if we throw them all out later on. And it was a really long
process. And I had to listen to a lot of milongas. And I
put on a song from the year 1920 for violinist Kosio and
made him listen to the guitar to start off with that idea.
In the end the result’s been really good; people have
liked it a lot. I was really sure of the lyrics, the ones
by Juan Simón; I heard them and I was touched from
the very start, they seemed really harsh to me and since
they came after the piece ‘Fugaz’, they fit
very well. Really, the show is a process between everyone.
I propose and the others give their ideas. Nacho
Arimany proposed the compás - he couldn’t
be there in Jerez and that was just half-maintained; the
change was hard -, the times of the milonga were proposed
by him. It gets put together between everyone. At first
it was Pedro Obregón who sang it, he was the one
who suffered, who had to fit it into the so difficult times
Nacho wanted. It was everyone’s work. And I directed
as best I could. It was hard but very interesting; I learned
a lot.
Do you lay out the pieces with
a sort of internal narrative?
It’s likely. Especially in ‘Fugaz’
and ‘Algo’. Then the more flamenco parts are
bailes which I tried to structure coherently, with their
beginning, their development and their end. But they don’t
have a storyline. ‘Fugaz’ does have one; I’m
relating a very hard beginning, the moment when you discover
you’re going to lose a person, you don’t know
when it’s going to be, but it’s going to happen.
There’s a story which is told. There might be an unconscious
script in the rest, but it isn’t planned that way.
In ‘Fugaz’, there are
touches of a more contemporary dance style. Where does that
come to you from?
I don’t know. I promise you that
I’ve never studied contemporary. I think it’s
from being in the studio. And the music helps. It was done
for me by Rafael
Estévez, both of us were at his house, he recorded
it and helped a lot. For it to begin with bell strokes was
completely his idea, since he thought it situated me a lot
at the beginning, something really gloomy. I don’t
know where it comes from. I did a show in France like about
eight years ago with the company of Erika la Quica, who
has really original ideas. During that process, those so
like African concepts might come from there, but I’m
not really very sure. I’m curious to see that again
to see if you could see something there of what I’m
doing now. But above all, my baile comes from spending many
hours in front of the mirror, listening to music and considering
what might fit well in every movement.
Because your training is in Spanish
classical, isn’t it?
I did Spanish dance and a lot of ballet
because when you get into it, we used to do flamenco one
day a week for an hour and a half to satisfy the itch we
had. A lot of Spanish dance, a lot of zapatilla, bolero
school, regional... And there was a time when I was sure
that I wanted to do flamenco, but I also liked castanets
and stylization. When I was finishing my studies I started
coming to Amor de Dios.
How did you get into flamenco?
I started dancing because my neighbor in
the apartment building, we were little girls, signed up
for sevillanas and I got bored at home; I didn’t have
anyone to play with. If she signs up for judo, I sign up
for judo. My mother told me no at first, that she was going
to buy everything for me and that I was going to get bored
right away. But I insisted until I convinced her. It is
true that I went to the first day of class and suddenly
said: what’s this? It was an instant match and it’s
been like that ever since. I don’t know if I would
have danced otherwise because I really never said I wanted
to dance. I remember my little brother, may he rest in peace.
There was a period when I had to take care of him while
my mother was working at the store. What I contrived in
order not to have my dancing taken away from me. I managed
to take my brother to the classes!
And are Spanish dance and flamenco
compatible?
| |
“I think
it’s really hard to do everything well: to want
to put the flower in your hair and be really flamenco,
and at the same time be stylized and wonderful” |
| |
Absolutely. But I think it’s really
hard to do everything well: to want to put the flower in
your hair and be really flamenco, and at the same time be
stylized and wonderful. I think very few people do that;
I can count them on the fingers of my hands. But I think
it’s compatible and necessary, at least a little bit.
It also depends on the concept you want to have of flamenco
dancing. There are people who are wild and they don’t
want to have their arm positioned, it’s like that
and olé; it’s logical. But if you want a concept
which is a little bit more devoted and more detailed, you
need to do ballet. I consider myself a bailaora. When I
was at Festival de Jerez I read in some newspaper “dancer
Concha Jareño”. Well now, it flatters me, but
I consider myself a bailaora; that’s what I do…
Although it might knock me down a little bit right now.
Really, what I’ve done is flamenco. I’ve worked
at every tablao in Madrid and I’m a flamenco maestra,
I’d never teach a Spanish dance class, since I’d
feel I’m not in my place. Now because in this show
I’ve taken on other aspects, but before this it used
to be absolute flamenco.
Then winning two prizes at the
Flamenco Art Contest of Córdoba must have been very
important to you, wasn’t it?
That was a dream to me; I wasn’t
expecting it. Since so many people have gone to those places
… I’d never entered any of those contests. I
didn’t get there thinking I was going to win anything.
There are a great many people who haven’t even reached
the final. You can expect anything. I entered three bailes
on video, they took all three and I went to the final with
all three. It was all like too wonderful. When I was told
I’d won two prizes it was a really strange thing.
But then I started to break away from all my fears. I told
myself: do you see how it is possible? Besides dancing for
others or being at tablaos all my life, I understood that
I could also do something for myself. It was when I started
to gain confidence, to say: yes, you can.
Next
>>
