05.03.2009 DIARIO DE CADIZ.By Francisco Sánchez Múgica.
After a fade to black, Maria rises up towards the sky just as a rose does, or as a bird of prey with it's endless wings and a distant look in it's eyes, trying to understand the reason for being here and to discern which direction to take. Maria delves into the light and shadows of her past. She is multi-faceted and shakes up her inner core, turning her "Self Portrait" - which fascinated the audience in Villamarta last night - into an artistic prodigy of dazzling genius, with different moments of almost unbearable convulsion. The subtlety of her latest creation hurts and tears us apart, shaking our emotions and disturbing our hearts. She plays with the emptiness of the space created by Brook, yet emphasises the sacredness of Dance (in all it's forms and meanings) and of Flamenco. She uses just the elements needed to knit an inner microcosm of shadows, leaving little space around it for any element of concession to the audience at large, only granting it to them at the end of her performance. This is Pagés by Pagés.
Maria establishes a dialogue with herself using a looking glass, just as Alice does, when she looks at the world through an upside-down mirror reality. Concave and convex. In a "soleá", or in the fantasy for a violin - played by David Moñiz, who is unsurpassable in each of his incursions into the performance. Maria curls up on a chair, folding her arms around herself like an onionskin and thus concludes her magical return to the "Nanas de la Cebolla" (Onion Lullabies). Her rendering of this piece is highly superior to the performance we remember, included in her "Canciones para antes de una Guerra" (Songs for before a war), four years ago.
And Pagés consolidates herself as a complete artist: reciting, interpreting and overflowing with carats of charisma in the rhymes of the "tanguillos" in "El trajín de Maria" (Maria's Hustle Bustle). She clicks her castanets frenetically and melts into her shawl, which she moves like a bolt of lightning towards the end of her performance. She has total and absolute dominion of the stage and a deep knowledge of herself, the changes she has gone through and her unlimited possibilities.
Maria sketches her own outline and her surroundings under the mantle of Saramago's verses. The flooring of the stage trembles when this woman from Seville rises up as a rose, full of sensitivity, totally harmonious and displaying her sculptural body as a model of beauty. Because Maria is, above all, a visual dancer of intense expressive force - in this "Self Portrait" she shines as never before.
This is a show, in any case, that is difficult to assimilate, in which thoughts and chains of verse flow surprisingly naturally, with no desire to show off or beg easy applause. This woman from Seville dances practically everything with a maximum degree of sobriety in every detail - be they the gold frames that are used by the dancers to illustrate the family portraits that hang on the walls, or the three mirrors that she confronts herself with in her Soleá". She appears attired with a satin gown and her castanets, or sinuously wearing a narrow skirt and a black top; her hair combed back in a sleek plait, as evidence of her desire for austerity.
From her studio to her home, from the dressing rooms to the stage. These are the four seasons for Maria. The four rooms of the home where her dancer's soul abides. Here is where hardships are masticated. A place where Life's meanders and inexplicable blows reside. From the "farruca" (impudence) of Aristotle to the foot tapping that the eight dancers of her corps de ballet execute in a fluctuating manner. From the sinuous "martinete" and the "debla" to the "tientos tangos" - in the style of "La Niña", which she finishes off with a gentle and delicious "La tarara". Then she turns herself off again, to return to the darkest corners of soul, to the echoes of the voices of Ana Ramón and Ismael de la Rosa. These were the excellent voices of a synchronized background - far superior to those of most dance companies - that envelope in just the right measure each of the scenes that make up the performance created by the author of choreographies such as "Sevilla" and "La Tirana".
Pagés dances Pagés with the uncontrived simplicity that one finds in great works of art. She is not playing a character role, she is stripping down to skin level. The deepest grooves of life are vomited onto the stage. She ended her performance visibly exhausted, but ready to take up her shawl again, with rabid movements that portray a final goodbye to the audience, who gave her a standing ovation such as has never been seen before.
As the Portuguese Nobel Prize Winner said: "there is something deep inside of us that has no name - that is what we really are". Maria Pagés's rendering of "Self Portrait" cannot be named. Just as Beauty, the smaller things in life and the perfumes that evaporate just by being smelled remain unnamed. A rose is raised, finally, "and I leave behind and abandon all the sorrows and amazement that give me pain". This is why Maria Pagés closes her deep self-analysis - her intimate and integral reflections - with "cantiñas" and "bulerias" that hold the fragrances of Cadiz. She underlines that, in the end, tomorrow will be another day and thus one should not give up the celebrating Life. We are givn a brief moment of light and colour - a moment for living and dreaming - within the darkness of this dense, deep reflection and awesome dance behind closed doors.
And Pagés consolidates herself as a complete artist: reciting, interpreting and overflowing with carats of charisma in the rhymes of the "tanguillos" in "El trajín de Maria" (Maria's Hustle Bustle). She clicks her castanets frenetically and melts into her shawl, which she moves like a bolt of lightning towards the end of her performance. She has total and absolute dominion of the stage and a deep knowledge of herself, the changes she has gone through and her unlimited possibilities.
Maria sketches her own outline and her surroundings under the mantle of Saramago's verses. The flooring of the stage trembles when this woman from Seville rises up as a rose, full of sensitivity, totally harmonious and displaying her sculptural body as a model of beauty. Because Maria is, above all, a visual dancer of intense expressive force - in this "Self Portrait" she shines as never before.
This is a show, in any case, that is difficult to assimilate, in which thoughts and chains of verse flow surprisingly naturally, with no desire to show off or beg easy applause. This woman from Seville dances practically everything with a maximum degree of sobriety in every detail - be they the gold frames that are used by the dancers to illustrate the family portraits that hang on the walls, or the three mirrors that she confronts herself with in her Soleá". She appears attired with a satin gown and her castanets, or sinuously wearing a narrow skirt and a black top; her hair combed back in a sleek plait, as evidence of her desire for austerity.
From her studio to her home, from the dressing rooms to the stage. These are the four seasons for Maria. The four rooms of the home where her dancer's soul abides. Here is where hardships are masticated. A place where Life's meanders and inexplicable blows reside. From the "farruca" (impudence) of Aristotle to the foot tapping that the eight dancers of her corps de ballet execute in a fluctuating manner. From the sinuous "martinete" and the "debla" to the "tientos tangos" - in the style of "La Niña", which she finishes off with a gentle and delicious "La tarara". Then she turns herself off again, to return to the darkest corners of soul, to the echoes of the voices of Ana Ramón and Ismael de la Rosa. These were the excellent voices of a synchronized background - far superior to those of most dance companies - that envelope in just the right measure each of the scenes that make up the performance created by the author of choreographies such as "Sevilla" and "La Tirana".
Pagés dances Pagés with the uncontrived simplicity that one finds in great works of art. She is not playing a character role, she is stripping down to skin level. The deepest grooves of life are vomited onto the stage. She ended her performance visibly exhausted, but ready to take up her shawl again, with rabid movements that portray a final goodbye to the audience, who gave her a standing ovation such as has never been seen before.
As the Portuguese Nobel Prize Winner said: "there is something deep inside of us that has no name - that is what we really are". Maria Pagés's rendering of "Self Portrait" cannot be named. Just as Beauty, the smaller things in life and the perfumes that evaporate just by being smelled remain unnamed. A rose is raised, finally, "and I leave behind and abandon all the sorrows and amazement that give me pain". This is why Maria Pagés closes her deep self-analysis - her intimate and integral reflections - with "cantiñas" and "bulerias" that hold the fragrances of Cadiz. She underlines that, in the end, tomorrow will be another day and thus one should not give up the celebrating Life. We are givn a brief moment of light and colour - a moment for living and dreaming - within the darkness of this dense, deep reflection and awesome dance behind closed doors.
