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But doesn’t flamenco enable an artist at any point in his career to contribute different things?

But to contribute those different things, you have to be fully devoted. Baile is like life; it’s always moving. Even though you have your own baile style, that way you’re teaching has to be with today’s movement so as not to become old, but to keep the vitality of the classical, of the old-style and contributing that generational movement in which things are being moved. That leads you to keep on working, seeing, investigating, being, not decaying. But sometimes we people also get tired of an entire life struggling. Today things are really hard for young people because there’s no work. Back then it was really hard for us because there was a lot of work and we started to have responsibilities at a really young age. Now there are people who’re thirty years old and they haven’t sharpened their responsibility because they have parents who’re supporting them. Before, we used to be the ones who supported our parents.

Merche Esmeralda and Manolo Marín (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Manolo Marín, your partner in the gala, is just that example that there are things that don’t pass on, that don’t get old...

That’s right. Do you know why? Because that man’s a timeless flamenco, a flamenco who never gets lost since he’s the flamenco of sobriety, character, moving an arm, moving his head, doing a finish on time... that which is feeling in flamenco. Just by doing a cut, raising your arms and growing two spans, you’re saying olé. A retained rhythm is so hard to hold... How hard it is to retain time, holding it in silence. There’s nothing there but the strength of a being who’s creating interest in the crowd so that it doesn’t lose that common thread. It’s really easy to do two or three virtuosities and say olé. People swoon for you. It’s logical; you’re giving people pure adrenaline. But for a man to do a finish and raise an arm, lift up his head and stay for a while in silence and you tell him olé, how hard that is. You might not even be able to say olé, but you do get goose bumps.

And what have you learned from your young colleagues in that gala?

I point out Adela Campallo, the girl who had that really tremendous accident (she had a serious neck injury in a car accident and had to have surgery and months of rehabilitation). When she finished dancing in New York her hand was stiff; she couldn’t move it. I immediately put ice on it, I started to massage it... And we’d already done exercises before coming out to warm up her neck, her shoulders, so as not to come out directly without warming up. I don’t just admire her; she’s been a lesson in courage for me. How brave we women are. I might possibly have been brave, but since it’s you, you don’t realize it. When another person does it like that, who puts baile before her own health, wow, how admiring. That person has given me balance which has led me to say to myself: how little you are, who are capable of retiring from dancing because your soul’s been hurt. Give your soul other things for it to move forward and be healed. That woman, Adela Campallo, has boosted my morale tremendously. Besides the fact that I think she’s a very good bailaora and that’s going to be seen in time. She’s a really young girl and her baile, which right now is temperament, like her youth. The day that – and it’s moreover going to be soon – she absorbs what art has to be able to display itself as a contained inner force, to then suddenly explode... Young people are always in the explosion; they don’t contain it. Adela is on the way to containing that explosion in order to know how to pose, how to make a strong start, do her movements and explode at the right time. She’s a girl who has very clean footwork, a lot of power, she has a very well-rounded school in arm movement, in turns... what she has to do is what I tell my pupils; calm down the lambs, mellow them out, let that explosion rest, enjoy the moment in itself. Adela is going to get there soon.

	"Aprendo mucho de mis alumnas, de lo que no hay que hacer y de las cosas bonitas que les veo"

I love Rafael Campallo, her brother, because he’s the strength of man... and with a very rare rhythmic sense. And then, for example, in the alegrías, which is what I’ve seen him do most, he has an anecdotal sense, very Andalusian grace, which is full of movements, flavor, winning over the crowd, to then in his knowledge of baile, do those finishes which round off the job. I’ve learned all those things from those people; I learn every day. I learn a lot from my pupils about what you shouldn’t do and the beautiful things I see in them. Then when you work with people who are really good, you learn a great deal. And not in Jerez, but in New York, Javier Barón was there, who’s incredibly mature in his baile. He’s got that unhurried baile, knowing when he has to pose his foot, when he has to breathe, when to turn, when to move his head... it’s the maturity of someone with a lot of knowledge. I met Javier when he was in the Spanish National Ballet; he was a kid and I’ve seen him mature over all these years. Besides, he’s a very learned guy in baile and music; he does really interesting things. He writes and does sketches of the choreographic movements when he wants to move people. When he wants to use music, he studies the musical times to know how he has to move. They live for baile. And I’m excited about experiencing this with people who are so restless and teach me, in a certain way, how to work.

Merche Esmeralda (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

It must be satisfying to see how bailaoras you’ve had in your shows, like Sara Baras and Eva Yerbabuena who took part in ‘Mujeres’, have become consolidated...

I have nothing to say about Sara Baras, since what I have to say isn’t pleasant at all. I can only let the people who hurt me go by, ignore them. Eva Yerbabuena is a very well-rounded woman in baile, who knows what dancing is very well, who has incredible flavor. Moreover, you have to admire that she’s already created a school for herself. She’s a woman with unbelievable knowledge in rhythm, turning, head movement, arm movement... And besides her knowledge, then she dances as she pleases because that’s why her body is hers. She demonstrates that she knows how to do it and then she dances the way she wants to dance it. That’s admirable. She’s a restless woman, and moreover, she has what others of us haven’t had; a husband like Paco Jarana. Every great woman has a great tree behind her which provides her with shade and shelter. And Yerbabuena has that. Yerbabuena would always be Yerbabuena, but most likely not as well-rounded if she didn’t have that tree. And I’d like to point out that man who treats that woman so wonderfully through art. Personally, I knew that he loved and admired his wife a lot. I don’t know what might happen, but I know that artistically he keeps on taking care of her, pampering her. ‘Châpeau’ to people like that, as has also been Rafael el Negro, Matilde Coral’s husband, who have had such great people at their side and they’ve been able to stay in the middle distance. My admiration goes out to them.

Do you have any projects following your return to stages?

I live from hand to mouth. When you’re young, you move around to try and become something. When you’re something, you move around to keep up. When you decide there’s a lot of back-stabbing and you’ve been hurt, you retire and come back, you then come back to live for the day and be happy. I can be criticized for a lot of things, but I can’t be written off as a coward. I also have knowledge because I’ve already set foot on a lot of stages and I’ve wandered down many roads. And if I had to do something important in dance, I’d really get involved, but not to do just anything and go on suffering. You can’t have a company of your own. You count on a series of people, but those people have to eat and if they get another contract, they leave you in the lurch. You can’t do anything. That’s being human... and human is finding yourself crippled. I’ve suffered a lot in life, personally and professionally, and now I tell it like the joke: little virgin, let me stay the way I am. I’m alone, I live with a son, I have a really mellow life, I’m very intense because I can’t be any other way. When I love, I love full-steam ahead. When I don’t love, I don’t hate. It’s better to forget than to hate. And I live a very mellow life within what I have. When I love people, they have me completely. I don’t sit down and have a cup of coffee if I don’t want to; now I’m choosy. If something is worth dying for, I’d die, but only for my family; there, I’d shed even my last drop of blood.

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