FREE PLATFORM. FLAMENCO ACCORDING TO…
BELÉN MAYA
Belén Maya for Flamenco-world.com
August 26th, 2010
• FLAMENCO IS…
Internationally, now that ethnic music, folklore and fusions
have gained a great deal of importance, a market has been
created which has benefited flamenco and its musicians.
As far as dance, flamenco has finally been able to join
the international contemporary dance circuits and other
hitherto inaccessible places like museums, factories, the
street… Flamenco has become recognized as a contemporary
artform and that’s very important.
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“Flamenco
has become recognized as a contemporary artform and
that’s very important”
|
If we open up our lungs to the other forms
of art and customs, flamenco will always have the privilege
of being an island to conquer at the international level.
Because in its vehemence it encloses the mysterious secret
of the mystic, the wild and the untamed. Through its veins
rushes the strength of beasts, the sluggishness of rivers
and the relentless fire of the bowels of the earth. But
if we close ourselves and do not look around us, it will
always be an ancient, decadent, bucolic, rigid artform…
• WHAT CONCERNS YOU
An internal need to express what makes me restless moves
me to create, but not from the conceptual, but rather from
something really physical and real in my everyday life.
For the past few years I’ve also needed to work with
people who inspire me, sharing, giving and receiving from
them, putting myself in that danger of doing things which
aren’t easy or comfortable for me… I’ve
always had internal reward for that, I’ve always come
out improved at a human and professional level.
I have a choreography pending which Israel
Galván is to do for me; a show I premiere in January,
‘TRES’, with a guitar and a cantaor; a show
with Varuma Teatro in which once again I’m going to
do something complicated, hee hee hee… and a few more
things for 2012.
I always weigh things up from within, not
from the external success of my career. I’ve made
the career for myself which I’ve wanted to, beginning
with my internal needs and never anything imposed. Nor have
I sold myself politically; I’m not the type to go
to events or waste time striking up friendships in order
to have connections. The balance is always successful because
the hits and misses have been at the right time and I’ve
learned a great deal from all of them. And because at a
human level, I’ve had and I have personal moments
with people I’ve worked with that have made me grow,
change, evolve.
I go on in the present and future with
this same way of doing things; it’s what makes me
happy. Right now, for example, I’ve organized a group
for the tablao El Cordobés in Barcelona with people
I’ve always wanted to work with. It might not be something
relevant to my career, but it’s what I wanted to do
now and it’s giving me a lot of satisfaction; I’m
learning a lot.
Perhaps the base of my way of doing things
lies in continually searching, learning… from yourself
and from others. Never considering closed and finished your
style, your baile, your road as an artist. You can always
improve and transform, there are always things within and
outside to explore.
• WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY
There’s a lot more technique, more study, more research…
being able to have a recording, a video on hand right away
helps the constant communication between professionals…
There are many sources of inspiration and a lot of influence
amongst us.
Flamenco is also adored all over the planet.
I teach courses all over the world, and I see dedication
and effort by people who don’t have it close to them,
who hardly know it and have to come to Spain every year.
That’s wonderful for us economically but also, to
me, it’s an incentive to teach, to give everything
I know, to expand flamenco in such faraway cultures as China,
Russia, Finland, the Philippines…
We flamenco artists have the great luck
of doing what we love and being paid very very well for
it!!!
• WHAT WORRIES YOU
We flamencos have the tactic of instant success, as my father
used to say. We don’t think about the future of our
artform, nor the union between us. That’s why we’re
at the mercy of politicians and their ups and downs. Every
time a director leaves the Flamenco Agency and a new one
comes in, you have to get on his good side, find out how
he leans, what he likes… We take advantage to milk
the festivals, biennials and courses, but we don’t
think about the generations to come, about creating a base.
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“A
lie: flamenco (and duende) are only there at night and
at parties”
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• A COMPLIMENT
To Rocío Molina for being free, Morente for being
God, Israel Galván for being a brilliant madman and
not having been a soccer player. To my maestros and maestras
for giving me their time and their teaching. To Barcelona’s
Empirical Flamenco Festival. To my mother and father and
all my ancestors for having brought me here.
• A LIE
That you have to seek the magic of duende, that flamenco
(and duende) are only there at night and at parties, that
you have to be pretty and have black hair to be a bailaora,
that you have to be Spanish to devote yourself to flamenco
professionally, that technique is cold… and so many
others.
• A TRUTH
You can turn around the aforementioned!
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“We
flamencos don’t think about the future of our
artform, nor the union between us”
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• SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
Riqueni. Also, to remind ourselves every day why we continue
at this. If you can’t answer yourself, it’s
better to call it quits. Milagros Mengíbar and her
bata de cola, cante and the old-time cantaores, the studio
Amor de Dios in Madrid, all the experience and love for
flamenco and everything the elder Maestros and Maestras
can teach us.
• A WISH
I wish big free places would appear for rehearsing, sharing
time between artists, making laboratories and improvising.
I wish patrons, producers and investors would appear in
flamenco that create companies so that it stops being a
slave to politics and subsidies. I wish the money earmarked
for culture and dance would stop being wasted and someone
with a good head on their shoulders without an ego would
appear who would invest it intelligently and for us artists,
with a vision of the future. I wish the seeds would be sown
now for upcoming generations of bailaores and bailaoras,
by means of training centers, festivals, scholarships…
and that people would stop seeking instant success and easy
money.
• NOTES
My opinions and, in general, my way of living this is very
very personal. I don’t like to sermon or generalize
too much either; everyone makes his way and they’re
all fine. So I’ll stop here.
Belén Maya
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