Maria Pagés stands in front of the mirror. In the shadows and the light. The "bailaora" (Flamenco dancer) comes back to Madrid with her "Self Portrait", an intimate and emotional journey to her innermost being. With some touches of humour and a lot of poetry. "This performance flowed out of me in that moment one takes to look within oneself, that moment when one asks oneself who one is, where one is and where one is going".
This was the moment when this choreography took flight - that will be filling the Teatro Español in Madrid, until the 12th April. This moment of personal coming to terms coincided with the request made by Mikhail Barysnikov (the dancer and choreographer) to María (who cites him as being "an example of coherence") to "create something that would define me as an artist, as a person. And that was the key that opened up the path to take." Four spaces: "the studio, home, the hotel and the stage". 12 scenes. Pagés at her purest.
She sits on a chair onstage, dressed in black, her shoulders covered with a red shawl. She smiles when she talks about success, her success that has taken her to perform in theatres and concert halls all round the world. "I understand success as being a happy continuity to what I am doing. I have no idea what other type of success there is, nor am I interested."
"Self Portrait" - which was premiered in Tokyo last year and has been awarded the Special Media Critics Prize and the "Giraldillo" Prize for the Best Performance in the 14th Flamenco Biennial in Seville - once again, is her own particular homage to poetry. "Flamenco singing is full of poetry, poetry surrounds us Flamencos." The words of José Saramago, Antonio Machado and Miguel Hernández are her company in this show, where she has chosen the dances she most likes "I'm giving all I've got as an artist and as a human being".
She smiles with satisfaction when she remembers that next year her company celebrates two decades of life. "The outcome has been very good. 20 years of hard work". She says she hasn't really changed much, neither on stage nor off it. "I am a simple woman, that dedicates 90% of her time to her work".
"I try to have a good time".
This dancer whose arms seem infinite only aspires to one thing at this moment of her life: to enjoy herself. "When I am creating a show I have no real proposition. I try to work only on an idea with real content, with my long-time collaborators. And I try to have a good time."
She is used to reaping applause from the audience and the critics, yet not all ovations sound the same. "Each audience is the expression of its culture. In Tokyo - where she has been 15 times to dance - it is different, in Seville, in New York." But all applause comforts her in the same way.
Maria Pagés (National Dance Prize, 2002) is a woman of short-term challenges - she would not comprehend her existence were it not for Dance. That she is a force onstage is unquestionable; her talent overflows. And her humility, a characteristic that ennobles her, never leaves her, whether inside the dressing room or onstage.
"Self Portrait" starts up with "La Soleá del Espejo" (The "soleá" at the mirror). What a start-up! Her body sways and turns with the shadows and the light. This is the "miraíta" (glance) at the essence of a woman who is what she dances.
