Rocío Márquez, flamenco cantaora. Interview
“Contributing something
new to flamenco might take you a lifetime, but you have
to try”
Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 2009
Translation: Joseph Kopec
Rocío
Márquez is ‘Aquí y ahora’
(‘Here and Now’). The Huelva-born cantaora does
a self-portrait after winning the coveted Lámpara
Minera Award. And she doesn’t do so with an album,
but with an audiovisual recorded without cuts and without
an audience. The video captures the variety of cantes she
masters, all her influences, her intention to create a trademark
of her own, and above all, her affection for cante. “I’m
sure that what I feel the most on stage, what I identify
the most with and the cante which gets across the most to
me is flamenco”, the young artist explains... for
the time being.
Rocío Márquez
(Photo Luis Gaspar) |
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Where does Rocío Márquez
come from?
I was born in the city of Huelva in ’85.
At the age of nine, I got up on stage for the first time
to sing at a peña. It was very decisive for me to
study at the Cristina Heeren Foundation; I learned a great
deal there. I had maestros such as José de la Tomasa,
Paco Taranto and young people I really learned a lot from
too like Sonia
Miranda, Virginia Gámez, Vicente Gelo and Javi
Rivera. We have the idea that you have to learn from older
people, but I’ve been taught a great deal by these
people and they were only a few years older than me. I’m
very grateful to them.
Three or four years later I started entering
contests. And I was lucky to have done recitals beforehand.
It helped me to gain experience but in a calmer way than
in a contest, where you’re always more nervous. The
contests have been a good experience; it’s true that
I’ve been really lucky. I’ve done really well
in all the contests I’ve entered. Calasparra, Alhaurín
de la Torre, Jumilla, Marchena... It was a great experience
and then the last ones, which were the ‘Lámpara
Minera’ and three first prizes at La Unión,
the truth is that they’re opening a lot of doors for
me. Without that, it’s a little bit more complicated.
Do you think it’s necessary
to be endorsed by some prize in order to make a place for
yourself in the world of cante?
Before having it I was also doing stuff,
but the truth is that the doors a prize opens for you are
hard to reach without them. There are a great many people
who sing, who are active and yes, in a way, you need it.
How do you remember the experience
at the La Unión Contest?
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Rocío Márquez
(Photo Luis Gaspar) |
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Marvelous. The kind of thing I say you
have to live in order to be able to explain it. They’re
really strong emotions concentrated in very little time.
You don’t have time to take them in. I remember an
interview I had the same day I won the Lámpara. I
was asked how I felt and the thing is I still hadn’t
taken it in. But the thing is now, a few months have gone
by and I still don’t think I have. It’s something
you dream about; I’d visualized and dreamed about
it millions of times, but until you’re named you can’t
believe it. When I recall that moment, my hairs still stand
up on end. It was something really nice for me.
Is having precedents such as Miguel
Poveda and Mayte Martín a burden?
Just the opposite. That encourages you.
Knowing there are maestros like them and look at where they
are and they have the Lámpara, encourages you a lot
to make an effort and try to give it the best you’ve
got. I think each thing comes in time; this is a long-distance
race. Of course, I love making a living at this and I do
want to achieve that and I’m going to make an effort
to do so. But I want things to come about little by little,
because when the foundation isn’t well settled afterwards
the house falls down and I don’t intend for that to
happen to me.
What references influence you?
I love the old-timers singing. In order
to study them, I really enjoy listening to Vallejo, Pastora,
I really like Gabriel Moreno, Tomás. Of the new ones,
I think there’s a bunch right now to drive you crazy,
to listen to a record and another and another and listen
to them again. There are really complete, wonderful artists
who manage to get across plenty of emotions. Listening to
them makes you feel happy for I don’t know how many
hours. I love Poveda, I have him up on a pedestal because
I think he’s a maestro, I love Mayte, Arcángel
who is from my native land... There are a lot of young people
but I also think that they already have their personality
and now those of us who are trying to move forward have
to bring out our own personality, not the one which they
have already achieved in a fantastic way and I admire them.
I like listening to them for enjoyment; to study, I prefer
the old-timers. Within how hard it is not to have influences
from your contemporaries – unless you’re in
a bubble, it’s impossible -, you have to try not to
be a copy because they already exist, they have their own
life, they’re wonderful. You have to manage to contribute
something new to flamenco. It might take you a lifetime,
but it’s worthwhile to try.
Rocío Márquez
(Photo Luis Gaspar) |
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In the recital at Festival
de Jerez 2009 you opted for a varied repertoire. Do
you have any favorite cante in particular?
I like varied recitals. Instead of doing
soleá for half an hour, do it for five minutes and
in those remaining twenty-five minutes you have time to
sing others. I prefer variety, although if on a given day
you feel at ease with a cante, well, you spread out. But
I prefer shorter cantes and greater variety. Everybody has
cantes he feels more comfortable with, but it also depends
a lot on the day, on how you get up or what you’ve
lived.
In interviews a few years ago,
you pointed out your attachment to other musical styles...
The truth is that I’ve sung a bit
of everything. I sang lyrical, before that copla, a little
bit of modern... There was a time when I used to lower my
head when I was asked about that because it was like yes,
I did it, that was me. But the truth is that now I’m
happy to say it because thanks to having tried all that,
I’m sure that what I feel the most with on stage and
what I identify the most with is with flamenco. The singing
which gets the most across to me is flamenco. I admire other
kinds of music, I love them, but for the time being I can’t
see myself singing anything but flamenco. I’ve surrendered
to it.
But do you rule it out?
That’s why the title of the DVD is
‘Aquí y ahora’ (‘Here and Now’).
I know what I think right now. Two years from now I don’t
know what I’ll be breathing, what I’ll have
lived and how that’ll have conditioned me. Right now
I know what I feel today.
What does that DVD ‘Aquí
y ahora’ offer?
I think it’s a rather nice idea and
recording live without cuts or an audience has quite a bit
of essence. We also considered the possibility of doing
it with an audience, but it seemed too sensationalist to
us. I wanted to do something like that, the way it came
out. It has its good side and its bad side. When you listen
to yourself you might see things that you would have repeated
at another moment or you would have done better, but then
it would have lost the sense we wanted to give to it. I’m
quite content with what we’ve done.
What repertoire did you record?
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Rocío Márquez
(Photo Luis Gaspar) |
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There are a lot of songs of mine. It gave
me great joy to do songs composed by me; the music and the
lyrics. They’re the tangos ‘Miro tus ojos’
and the song ‘Como se pasa la vida’ which at
first went por bulerías and afterwards I started
to stick in a lute, I started to lose my head, it turned
into a song and it had a lot of Arab melismas. The lyrics
are an adaptation of Jorge Manrique, of ‘Coplas a
la muerte de su padre’, in old Spanish. It’s
a nice story. I’m really happy because I feel it’s
really mine. It might not be a commercial recording, but
it is what I feel right now and what I can give up on stage,
without adding anything or taking anything away either.
What accompaniment do you use?
There’s guitar, percussion, clapping
and the song has lute and Arab percussion, and I play the
hurdy-gurdy. It was funny because I tried to improvise and
I come out in the video looking to see what note I was playing.
Have you studied music?
Yes, I studied piano at the conservatory,
I gave it up at the intermediate level. And afterwards I
did a Music Teacher’s degree. It’s helped me
above all when composing.
Although it might sound frivolous,
your wardrobe is eye-catching. Do you think esthetics is
important for a cantaora?
Art comes in through the five senses. You
go to see someone and it all reaches you; the lighting,
the sound, and of course, how you sing, but also the presentation,
the way you are. There are people who might not sing so
much, but you love to go and see them just for what they’re
like on stage. And you have to play with that a little bit.
Look, I dreamed of reaching the final at La Unión.
I knew it was hard but I used to tell my mother that nothing
was impossible. It was the first year I was entering and
people told me not to be discouraged if I didn’t win,
for I had a lot of years ahead of me. And I responded to
them not to put a “no” in front of me, that
I was going to try. One day I called up my sister to tell
her that I’d seen a lovely white dress for the final.
And she laughed, telling me how great, that I hadn’t
even been called for the semifinals and I was already thinking
about the dress for the final. I think it’s positive
energy, mind power. Ha ha ha ha.
