The teacher: "A week-long course is simple; anyone can do it. But
continuing with classes day after day and year after year..."
Manolo Marín (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
For the last thirty years, you've run a school that has trained most of
today's top dancers.
Teaching is the hardest and most unrewarding facet of dancing.
Why?
I don't want to start complaining, because I've had a lot of students that
respect me and love me. But a lot of them have short memories, and you hear them
say that they haven't studied with anyone, or they'll just mention one well-known
name, when they've really done a week-long course with them. Your real teacher
is the one that takes you on when you're starting out. I've also taken on students
who already knew what they were doing, or were already famous. I haven't trained
Cristina Hoyos, I've given Cristina Hoyos something. I haven't trained María
Pagés, but I took her on early in her training, and she spent years with
me. She can't forget about me. But others do; they won't admit it. When you hear
something like, "Everything that my little girl does is her own," it
bothers you. But it makes you feel really good when students are thoughtful enough
to send you a card, and you see that they're doing all right.
It's a tough profession, and you have to have a lot of patience. A week-long
course is simple; anyone can do it. But continuing with classes day after day
and year after year... Especially with the skills that dancers have today. It's
really hard to offer students something useful every day. A teacher has to entertain
his students; he has to maintain their interest. Young people learn quickly, especially
children. After six months, they know more than the teacher. Keeping up people's
interest every day, without intimidating them, isn't an easy thing. I feel it's
no use shouting. People should have a good time in class. When a girl goes to
school, she might have to deal with discipline, and her parents might have to
force her to go, but dancing shouldn't be like that. You can't maintain someone's
interest with punishment.
What concepts do you try to teach your students?
The first thing I do is to ask them if they like dancing. They say yes, and
this and that, and I answer that dancing isn't something that you should just
like; it has to be an obsession! You have to dance when you're in the street.
Every time you walk past a mirror, you have to look and try out some movement
or pose. It has to be a kind of madness. It's a better job than spending eight
hours a day in an office or cleaning floors; dancing is more fun. More people
dance today, because their parents pay for lessons, but it's not a question of
passion for most of them. They have to know that it's hard; that it isn't as easy
as a lot of them think. You have to be disciplined, and you have to love flamenco
and love dancing.
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"The most important thing that foreigners are lacking isn't
Spanish blood, like some people say, but the experience"
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Do you think that flamenco dance is an international language?
I use a lot of English or Japanese words in class, but it's more for fun than
anything else. Classic ballet is taught in French. I tell many foreign dancers
that they should learn a little Spanish. How can they expect to dance flamenco
if they don't understand the verse! The most important thing that foreigners are
lacking isn't Spanish blood, like some people say, but the experience. An American
or Japanese student who spends 15 days in Spain every three years has no real
contact with flamenco culture. Someone from Jerez or Seville is accustomed to
hearing flamenco, at least on the radio. If not flamenco, then at least sevillanas,
and they know how to clap to rumbas. But someone who only experiences flamenco
through recordings hasn't actually lived it.
How do things look today for a dancer with training?
It's hard because there are plenty of dancers, but the conditions today are
completely different. It used to be that you'd just get on the first train and
go to sleep instead of spending money on a room. The buses, the boarding houses,
going from village to village, the theaters, the dressing rooms... You might think
that a dressing room in the Albéniz Theater in Madrid is ugly, but it's
a palace compared to what you'd find in those villages and cities. The dressing
rooms were under the stage, and, with the dancers' footwork, things would start
falling on your head. Segovia, Valencia, Valladolid... The water would come out
of the tap ice-cold!
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"I've worked in better or worse conditions, but I've never
had to put on a clown act for the señoritos"
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Do the changes that have taken place since then prevent artists from putting
feeling into what they're doing?
You can dance with feeling, but artists used to have to keep working just to
support their families, and young people today aren't facing the same situation.
Maybe they haven't got anything, but they aren't lacking anything, either. Buying
a car or a house used to be an impossible dream. It's not that important, though.
I think there are people that have had a worse time than I have. I never was involved
in the fiesta circles, dancing for the señoritos. I've worked
in better or worse conditions, but I've never had to put on a clown act for the
señoritos. I got out on my own when I started to know what I was
doing. I might have been poor, but I had my pride.
revista@flamenco-world.com
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