Interview with Victoria Abril, actress

Victoria Abril advocates the Mont de Marsan Flamenco Festival

“I must have a free spirit, just like flamenco artists”

Silvia Calado. Mont de Marsan, July 2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

A star is shining in the front row of the Café Cantante. Mont de Marsan invited Spanish actress Victoria Abril, from her home in Paris, to patronize its flamenco festival. And it was an offer she couldn't refuse. She traveled countless kilometers with her children to enjoy taking a seat in the audience - a rare treat for someone from her profession. Besides rekindling the flamenco flame which was first lit in her home town of Malaga, Matilde Coral, Chano Lobato and Parrilla de Jerez taught her something else: “Elderly people show you the short cuts. They haven't the energy for beating around the bush - there's no waffle, no silly games, so they just have to concentrate on what's really important.”

Matilde Coral and Victoria Abril

Are you a flamenco lover?

I'm a lover of the arts in general. I grew up with flamenco at home in Malaga with my family. I was up to here with flamenco, so I started studying classical ballet, Chopin, no handclaps, none of that common stuff. At 22 I went to Paris and at 25 I found myself crying in a taxi one day because Manolo Escobar was playing on the radio. That's when I said to myself, listen girl: something's up. And from that moment on every time I come to Spain... but, well, here we are in Mont de Marsan. This is tricky stuff, you have to grow up with flamenco or be born into it; you can't just come along and start understanding it. And that's what happens with more than half the Spanish people, they can take it or leave it, they don't miss it, nor do they realize how vast flamenco is. I mean look at this - here we are in France at a festival that's been running for sixteen years, and even Camarón's been here. The truth is the French made the effort and the Spanish are all too thrilled to come. And so long as there are means of getting here and the Spanish can find a way to cross the Pyrenees, that's great, man.

What is it about this artform that draws you to it?

Me, I'm obviously not a gypsy, but I feel like my soul must be - a gypsy spirit, free like they are. I must have something. My parents, apparently, are of Irish Catholic descent on my mother's side, they ran away from Ireland at the turn of the century, like many others who went off to Malaga. So I guess I come more from my father's side, he's from Zamora in the north of Spain. I don't know, but some things in life make you think... blues drives me wild, jazz drives me wild, more and more as time goes by. Like there are some clothes you never take off. And there are the things you wear just this year: your hair, trousers with a wider leg, fashions... But there are things that not only don't go away, but that you like more and more with the passing of time. Things you'd travel halfway across the globe in a day to see.

And what did you think of ‘Historias de arte’?

I have a great respect for these people. Like they said, it's two hundred years of experience. The trouser legs have changed, but all the rest is right here inside. Elderly people show you the short cuts. They haven't the energy for beating around the bush - there's no waffle, no silly games, so they just have to concentrate on what's really important. And if Matilde's dancing, since she doesn't have the energy, she focuses on marking time, keeping the beat. That's what's important, not your age, or how many calories you burn. It's what you give and what you've got, the link between those.

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