María Pagés, bailaora and
choreographer. Interview
“Seville is full of contrasts,
just like life, just like flamenco”
Silvia Calado. Madrid, February 2007
Translation: Joseph Kopec
She comes with a thick notebook
tucked under her arm, ready to work out what’s behind
the scenes of her latest project. María Pagés
takes a seat in the cafeteria of the Teatro Bulevar in
Torrelodones, where her company resides, creates and rehearses.
And one by one, she turns the pages making up ‘Sevilla’,
a show based on teamwork which pays tribute to the city
it gets its inspiration from. She reads texts, shows the
designs for the dresses, shoes and backdrops, explains
the notes and recalls the dearest details of a project
with a vital undertone. There are no questions here. The
artist slips her thoughts here.
María Pages.
Photo Ouka Leele / www.mariapages.com
Esthetics
“I’d like to make known the
work that’s there behind ‘Sevilla’.
This is a notebook in which we’ve written down all
the references as far as esthetics. I’ve decided
on the era of the twenties and thirties because it was
really fruitful at the artistic and cultural level. Seville
later had its ‘Expo’, underwent a transformation
which had repercussions in everything, especially in flamenco.
It was a period when the most important cante
recordings started to be made, it was an era with
an image that was very innovative, very modern and at
the same time very Sevillian”.
Dual wardrobe
“Here are all the outlines worked
on by Christian Olivares, who’s done a marvelous
job. He’d already influenced the wardrobe in ‘El
perro andaluz’, but he’s taken it like more
seriously here: wardrobe and stage design started to be
worked on jointly from the beginning. Normally, I always
conceive the wardrobe once the work’s been finished.
However, here he started to mark the esthetics from the
beginning; everything was developed jointly. The wardrobe
is all hand-made, all hand-dyed and each model was different.
In ‘Banderillas’, the costume was half-bull,
half-bullfighter. And we talked over things starting with
that design about what the choreography was going to be
like. The music is a song I’ve always loved by José
María Gallardo, which he usually used to play
on classical guitar, but we did an adaptation for two
flamenco guitars. And the wardrobe marked the rest. I
wanted to represent the bull and the bullfighter, but
I was never going to imagine that Christian was going
to give me that wardrobe design. It already marked the
movement, the focus of the choreography. Having worked
on it separately are craftsmen like María Calderón,
who’s done a wonderful job in the dyeing, applications,
embroidering and patterns. Up close, each costume is a
jewel. We’ve worked on the duality a great deal.
Seville has many contrasts, life is full of contrasts,
flamenco is full of contrasts”.
Polka-dot... shoes
“I’ve always thought polka-dot
shoes were really funny, the typical ones all we girls
used to have, which gave us unbelievably sore feet. And
I told Christian we should work on the shoes. I’ve
always been really minimal with shoes. I’ve always
worn black ones and at the most, in red with wooden heels.
And those are my shoes for everything. I wanted to resort
to polka dots and that’s why I put together the
percussion number with polka dots of light. Besides, it
was a pure experiment here at the theater. I had it in
my head but I wasn’t sure it’d come out, that
it’d be seen from so far away. You start to get
to know more tricks, where to place the lighting... And
in the end, everything comes from the memory of my first
shoes, which had polka dots. He did many outlines. Not
everything was made, but the polka-dot shoes did remain.
They were brought out just as is; they’re great
artists. The polka dots are really present. I don’t
usually wear polka dots, but I felt like it. They’re
all painted one by one”.
Sevilla's project sketches
What hasn’t been made
“There are also many things which
haven’t been made. It’s like everything; when
you start to cook up ideas... In the orientation of the
eras, I also wanted to reflect a more current period.
We made several attempts (and she points out a sketch
of Puente del Alamillo), but it didn’t work
out. We realized that what had led me to do ‘Sevilla’
were things that I can use to take with me when I leave
and be able to find them again when I return. I think
the roots, memories, essences... give us the necessary
balance. Years might have to go by for that to come out.
And it’s so curious that most of the things representative
of Seville are oriental: the back combs, shawls, fans,
even the Chinese lanterns of the Fair... It doesn’t
seem like it, but we do have influences from the Orient,
especially in esthetics. We did an experiment (and
she points out an outline of herself in a flamenco stance,
wearing a kimono): “Japan thinks about Seville,
Seville thinks about Japan”.
José María Sánchez
| |
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| "I
think the roots, memories, essences... give us the
necessary balance" |
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“Of course, the work with Jose...
It’s really hard for me to talk about that. Right
now I’m reading what I wrote, at present... and
it’s heartrending. But it’s true that we started
to think it up together, then at the end Jose wasn’t
well and I had to give it the last tug... ‘Sevilla’
has been special because of all of that; the time it’s
been created in is exactly the two years of his illness.
I think I did this work for us to be together more. Suddenly
his world collapses and I encouraged him to keep on going;
he had to do things, have a project on hand. It was support
for us, for our life. There were really good moments because
I saw that creating was a help to everyone; agreeing on
nice ideas, having a justification for us to go to Hamburg
and see Christian even though he was really ill, to talk
about the project, not about how we were. There were divine
moments, for example, when we chose the waltz by Shoshtakovich.
I was tired of hearing it, but I didn’t know it
was so contemporary. And on the other hand, when I heard
it was the typical folk song sung by tunas (student minstrel
groups), children, grandparents... I saw that it could
be the beginning of the show. And more so, when we realized
that it was por bulerías. Then we looked for lyrics
which made a reference to Seville and some of them called
for it. That’s where linking the waltz to ‘Bulería
de la rosa’ came up. All my life I’d thought
the lyrics said “yo te daré una rosa”,
not a “cosa”. We set it in the streets of
Seville because people spend a lot of time in the streets,
outdoors. The houses were built for that; not like now.
I remember strolling around Seville and hearing the noise
of dishes, children, the radio... through open windows.”
That flamenco on the radio
“The academy part, where I remember
all my maestros - Adelita Domingo, Manolo Valdivia, Manolo
Marín...-, I also did thinking about the Flamenco
Thursdays on Radio Sevilla. How things have changed! Now
you go on TV, but it used to be the radio. It was a matter
of re-broadcasting the bailes which used to be done with
an audience in a small theater. There was a circle with
microphones for guests such as Antonio
Mairena, Matilde Coral, Rafael el Negro and Luisa
Ortega to comment on what you were going to do. I have
legendary photos of myself dancing with Antonio Mairena
looking at me. And you were given a little interview and
the announcer re-broadcast the performance. I think that
had a certain charm... because then people would listen
to it on the radio and imagine the baile. I must have
done a lot of them as a girl; every time there was a gap
to fill, they brought out the girl, just like at charity
festivals. They were showcases for young people and experience.
And Luis Caballero might just as easily sing for you,
and you’re just a girl, as afterwards sing for Matilde
Coral. It wasn’t so prepared. Why are you going
to dance? How many sets of lyrics are you going to do?
Come on! And this went on nearly every weekend. And the
academy part has that ambience of the radio re-broadcast”.
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