|
Interview with Joaquín
Grilo, bailaor and choreographer:
"We bailaores should start taking a
little more interest in cante"
Silvia Calado Olivo, September 2003
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
Fear and bravery join hands. Joaquín
Grilo overcomes one with the other in order to continue learning, to continue
on the endless road to maturity, putting Joaquín the person before Joaquín
the artist. The dancer and choreographer from Jerez is at a creative high point,
with two projects in the pipeline: the choreography for a Ballet Nacional de España
production and his own company's forthcoming show. He voices his feelings that
as he grows he moves deeper into a labyrinth where geniuses like Antonio Gades,
music and his life experiences act as his guiding forces. And he knows that the
way out of the labyrinth is always found with simplicity...
After the resounding success of the show 'De noche', Joaquín Grilo takes
up the creative gauntlet once again... this time with a dual challenge. The artist
from Jerez is looking forward to the challenges and privileges which he feels
having been requested by Ballet Nacional de España to choreograph a piece
which will be set to music by José
Antonio Rodríguez. And as he does so, he'll have to make time to create
his own company's next production, which he's promised to première at the
2004 Festival de Jerez, as well as seeing to an international tour scheduled to
take him next year to countries like Japan. As he makes both projects reality,
the bailaor and choreographer will stick to his trusted methods: "Aside from
being someone who always has an idea I want to put across, I use the musical score
a lot, it helps me a great deal when I'm thinking about what's going to happen
on stage, even if I do always have a rough script. To me the musical part is fundamental
because it's the soundtrack you have to dance to at the end of the day."
For Joaquín Grilo, member of the Paco de Lucía sextet for years,
musical boundaries just evaporate. "I'm lucky enough to have met a lot of
musicians, above all from the world of jazz." And he's found a sparring partner
in Antonio Serrano who, he clarifies, "not only plays harmonica, like on
Nono García's 'Atún y chocolate', but who is a deeply enticing musician,
with clear ideas and an astounding ability to teach, in spite of his youth. He's
deeply sensitive and at the same time self-assured." In fact the musician
from Valencia is already working on a couple of numbers for his next show, using
not harmonica but accordion. "When he asked me what instruments I needed,
I thought of the harmonica, because what he plays on harmonica sounds like pure
magic, he takes the music where it's never been, even if it's something you've
been listening to all your life. When he suggested the accordion to me, the first
instrument he learned, I didn't hesitate to give him the OK." And Antonio
Serrano isn't the only one. "I'm surrounded by people who, fortunately, give
me plenty of support. José Quevedo El Bolita is also on my wavelength,
Diego Amador, Miguel Vargas... lots of people get on really well with me, lots
of them. And I have to move now because you don't know how long you can count
on these amazing musicians."
As for the script, he's working on several ideas. On the one hand, he comments
that he'd like to do something on the life of Picasso, "a contemporary genius
who I love, and who besides reminds me a lot of Paco (de Lucía), physically
above all. You take a photo of Paco and another of Picasso, you fold them across
the eyes and they both look the same." On the other hand, he wanted to base
it around the Jerez wine harvest, "but showing how it really is, because
I harvested years back, and I know what it's really like to live out in the countryside.
I could maybe travel back in time, to the seventies for example, when people still
lived out in the country, woke up there, ate all together out of an earthenware
bowl and were always singing and dancing whenever they could after their day was
done."
The choreographer in the labyrinth
| |
|
|
"You get more and more frightened. It is like a labyrinth
you're getting lost in"
|
|
|
Joaquín Grilo states firmly that he can't tell a story that doesn't
draw from his life experience. "There's a lot of things you can draw from,
but lots of factors have to also coincide: the musician has to get involved, people
have to be able to understand the story… and it's getting harder all the
time, you get more and more frightened." And why? What's a flamenco star
got to be afraid of? "Because it seems like the deeper you go, the more it
becomes like a labyrinth you're getting lost in. You think you're learning more
but you're not at all, you know less than you did. You realize how difficult it
is to tell a story well, not just to skim over it; and to make clear what you're
saying... and above all how difficult it is for you yourself." And the task
is a time-consuming one. "You don't produce a show in two days. These days
I think we make the mistake of trying to cram in three shows a year. Come on,
let's do new shows! I don't think that's the right idea." His ideal is personified
in "the dancer who for me is the greatest - Antonio Gades. He's produced
three shows in his life - 'Carmen', 'Fuenteovejuna' and 'Bodas de Sangre' - and
that's it, masterpieces each one of them, with a few details, a few ideas sketched
out, without so much clutter." But he knows this is a difficult level to
attain - besides being a genius "you have to have time and money." To
make 'Fuenteovejuna', he tells us, "Gades needed almost five years and thousands
of dollars… but later I've been told that he was scared out of his mind.
So you can guess what I was like when the Spanish National Ballet Company calls
me and gives me that opportunity! It's something amazing, and you get excited
about it and there are plenty of people to do the dress for you, to do whatever
you want. Then you ask yourself "so what now?"
The antidote for coming out of that situation on top is bravery: "Of course
I'll go out of my way to do the best I can, I'll face the challenge… I'm
a shameless enough individual to do that, you might say." That's the only
way to overcome difficulties, as the artist reflects. "What I do best and
what I think I really know how to do well is dance, whether I like it or not.
As for the other stuff, I'm learning, I'm at the stage where I'm learning to choreograph
and I'm really afraid, I still don't have that feeling of security. OK I do feel
secure about my last production 'De noche'... but that's after two years. At the
outset I felt like I do now, on edge, but now I've got a firm grip on it. Unfortunately
though, now's the moment when I have to push on and do something new. But that's
life, that's the way this business works, I'll just have to battle on."
next >>
revista@flamenco-world.com
|
