María Pagés - Press

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH 06/03/2008
How the dancer with endless arms embraces art with a heart

“Pagés has the charisma, the crowd-pleasing technique and the commanding choreography to hold an audience…”
“…immensely enjoyable and brilliantly danced.”

THE TIMES, 06/03/2008
“Pagés is a class act.”

“The audience went wild at the curtain with the kind of foot-stomping enthusiasm…”.

EL MUNDO, 11/10/2007
In state of grace

What is nearly impossible to get, it is achivied by María Pagés in this homage to her hometown: an enormous and great spectacle however categorically emotional....

ABC, 8/10/2007
A magnificent homage

María Pagés, one of the most exceptional voices of flamenco dance nowadays... The Sevillian artist has repeatedly shown her imagination, her choreographic courage, her singularity and her intelligence.../p>

EL PAIS SEMANAL, 23/9/2007
The free flamenco of “La Pagés”

Without prejudices. Without complexes. Free to invent and also to insist on the clichés. The versatile bailaora and choreographer María Pagés, Nacional Dance Award, is released to the rescue of a truthful dance with “Sevilla” a trip to the essence of her hometown that lands in Madrid...

DAILY NEWS EGYPT, 8/9/ 2007
Flamenco flame lights up the night

Pagés takes flamenco to a new level, mixing the traditional form of art with her own contemporary take on it whilst still retaining the true meaning of the dance

FIGARO SCOPE , 18-24/4/2007
María Pagés à Chaillot

Flamenco , L’énergie poetique ...

EL MUNDO, 13/3/2007/
Intelligent and creative

The Sevillian María Pagés is a wonderful model of woman: creative and modern artist, free, qualified and intelligent... If there is something that can sum up that mythical night in the Círculo de Bellas Artes... is the power with which “la Pagés” could communicate that particular democratic sense and without boundaries in her dance. Thus it came through the veins of all of the audience, giving her heart assisted by a very excellent lighting, and only framed by a simple background curtain and a confident and correct group...

EL PAIS, 13 /09/2006
The ended and rigorous perfection

Some time ago, it has been a long time since I had no seen a dance with such ended and rigorous perfection. She is a worthy example of what flamenco dancing has full of unique and exclusive in itself, since there are no rules to follow and so on. There are none apparently, because actually flamenco dancing is an art subjected to a discipline that is not seen but felt....

...María Pagés, once again, is the absolute star, in a play that offers many opportunities for showing off her own skills. Her dancing is statuary, with many records that bear his stamp. When she is contracted or when releases, all the dancer’s task is a prodigy of absolute devotion... As author of the choreographies, her creational way is demonstrated all the time, either in her own dances or the dances performed by the girls and boys of her group. All of them are wonderful, dancing masterfully items entrusted to them, which are not few...

ABC, 13/09/2006
The very personal aesthetic of María Pagés

...She is wrapped up by a cast of quality in all aspects, the body dance embellished so much the ”zapateados” as the “alegrías”, as well as those ones who took part together with “the Master”, especially on the theme performed with walking sticks and castanets that is handled with a extreme originality and a sense of humour without losing a whit of flamenco in its drama because its development is cleverly worked out

Its secret lies in who has managed to adapt the styles to her figure, to her look that achieves not bear any resemblance to the flamenco genre. Something extremely difficult to achieve in flamenco dancing, as demonstrated once again in tangos, seguiriyas, soleares and bulerías. Four flamenco forms that she masters and expresses from the intensity to the beauty in a splendid manner, in a performance as masterful as vigorous that the audience fascinated by her devotion to them in body and soul – she danced “at lenght” as usually said – applauded with genuine enthusiasm.

EL MUNDO, 17/10/2005

It was reported that among the most positevely talked about events at the Ibero-American Summit that opened in Salamanca, was the performance offered by María Pagés, a flamenco star in Spain. The dancer aroused deep emotion among the authorities that had been invited to the opening ceremony, when she appeared on stage for a most unexpected performance: she danced flamenco, the most typical among Spanish dances, to the poems of various authors such as Miguel Hernández, Antonio Machado or José Saramago. The Portuguese Nobel Prize had actually recorded a reading of his poem on a visit to María’s house in Seville. The Portuguese President, Mr. Jorge Sampaio, expressed to Ms. Pagés his thanks for her choice of dancing to the original Portuguese version. But the most enthusiatic admirer of the Sevillan dancer was the King of Spain himself. Once her performance was over, Don Juan Carlos’s comment was that the Summit had reached its highest point and could then even be declared closed with success. Also Mr. Nestor Kitchner, President of Argentina, Mr. Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile, and Mr. Lula da Silva, President of Brasil expressed their deep emotion and declared that the trip to Salamanca would have been worth undertaking even if it had just been to attend Ms. Pagés’s performance.

EL PAIS, 18/10/2005

A bare scene, very simple but full of atmosphere, just made of light and a curtain of black gauze, which did not interfere with the voices, the music and the foot work that melted into the Atlantic breezes from the Americas. María Pagés’s flamenco, rich and beyond boundaries, expressed the spirit of the Summit that opened yesterday with a performance by the Spanish artist accompanied by seven of her musicians and ten dancers.

CANARIAS 7, 6/12/2005

... And those arms!.... for when she raises them the world stops spinning to watch her dance...

ABC, 12/10/2005
María Pagés...

... María Pagés is among the greatest innovators of contemporary flamenco. Her shows like “El perro andaluz”, “La Tirana”, “Flamenco Republic” or the latest “Canciones, antes de una guerra” are an accomplished proof of her heterodoxy, her bravery and her constant search for new forms of flamenco expressions...

LA OPINIÓN, 28/6/2005

María Pagés seduces with her flamenco beyond boundaries The coreographer has created a show that ranges masterfully from tradition to avantgarde. María Pagés scares off fear and dances to peace....

GRANADA HOY, 28/6/05

Her dance can laugh at anything without making fun of anybody, it can get rid in a single swirl of all the sadness in the world and invite hope to take a seat in the audience... Pagés and her company master a whole range of emotions on stage with great accuracy, as if they could trace lines with their feet and their expressive hands...

EL PAIS, 14/4/2005

...María Pagés danced. And she was a dancer in a state of grace, full of imagination, in a perfectly achieved coreography. In “Songs before a war” she tackles a whole range of different themes, from the copla española to John Lennon. And, of course, flamenco. And she all does it beutifully. Her company manages a perfect synchrony, rigourous and precise in every step. Ideas flow constantly, the rythm never drops and there isn´t a single pause...

EL PAIS, 8/4/2005

María Pagés is in complete control of the stage, she uses it and jumps around it with torero movements, against all established codes of flamenco, adding a new shade to her very personal and daring style, to her elegant and expressive movements, free almost to the point of anarchy, to her sense of music, all of these far beyond the tight space of the coded genre

EL PAIS, 18/10/2004
A dancer of great class.

... her long, sinuous arms enclose the secrets of first class dancing, while her vital zapateado breaks loose on stage with unprecedented elegance. Her tall and powerful figure seems wrapped in an imaginary corset of lust and distinction that allows her to perform with movements that are both measured and expressive. Pagés’s dancing is elegant and full-fledged, engaged with its time and age and yet truly flamenco, just cunningly introduced into the present....

EL PAIS, 30/9/2004
13th Bienal de Flamenco – A display of perfections

We saw the best of flamenco. María Pagés produced a most accomplished work, full of the best intentions, and all of them fulfilled, without a single weakness, without a pause...

THE NEW YORK TIMES, 27/02/04
13th Bienal de Flamenco – A display of perfections

...you had to admire Ms. Pagés’s sinuous and almost serpentine arms, her quick feet and her juxtapositions of smooth and jaggedly staccato steps.

NEWSDAY, 28/02/04
A searing, stripped-down flamenco

Flamenco dancing, with its deep roots in proud tradition, has an innate rigor and purity, but María Pagés also makes it bracingly contemporary........ The first half of her company´s exhilarating two-hour program at the Joyce Theatre strips flamenco to its essence and applies a masterly sense of formal design..... Pagés seizes the stage for a fierce solo that seems to emerge, with wonderful spontaneity, from a deeply internal source.

NEW YORK TIMES, 24/2/2004
Fearless flamenco

The leading innovator of modern flamenco let’s her imagination soar in two powerful works.

EL MUNDO, 23/07/2003

María Pagés claims the joy of movement, she is a leader and a friend, and creates a reality from which nobody can unhook.

THE BOSTON GLOBE, 20/06/2003

Pagés flexes and undulates her remarkable arms like a tree in high wind.... Pagés, in her revolutionary fervor, has come back to the future: This is what authentic flamenco is meant to be.

THE POST AND COURRIER, 06/06/2003

María Pagés, whose elegant style and strength brought the audience to its feet.... Ms. Pagés created a multitude of emotions and characters. Her arms moved as if liquid and powerfully carved the space around her adding to the depth and expression of her dances.

LE JOURNAL DE MONTREAL, 11/07/2002

Quand danser le flamenco peut aussi être drôle. Moderne et éclectique, le tout différait largement de l’idée que l’on se fait généralement du flamenco.

ABC, 26/01/2002

In the City Center... María Pagés with her prodigious company accelerated the heartbeat of the audience... she evoked all the possible rythms and tempos... and the audience gave in to her with joy and pleasure.

IL CORRIERE DELLA SERA, 11/01/2002

“Flamenco Republic” enjoys the coreography of Ms. Pagés and reflects her beguiling personality... her arms, her supple wrists, her nervous legs. The tale goes that the rythm of this strange dance is based on the heart beat...

LA RAZÓN, 26/8/2002

María Pagés is not just flamenco dancing. She’s the triumph of intelligence. ... She has an overwhelming concept of flamenco She can materialize it. She is definitely among the greatest.

EL PAÍS, 8/6/2002

María Pagés is not just flamenco dancing. She’s the triumph of intelligence. ... She has an overwhelming concept of flamenco She can materialize it. She is definitely among the greatest.

EL PAIS, 25/8/2002
All arts should have a Pagés.

María Pagés imagines and creates a space where dancing and its consequences engage with ideology: flamenco as a vital aim