Tamara Rojo exceeds her own existence. The extraordinary Spanish dancer years ago ceased to be a person to multiply into many, valuable all of them, and to enter dance history as a great one.
Rojo, 39, has returned to dance in Havana. All local ballet lovers think: I hope in the theaters, but these have not even been able to accommodate the summer features by the national company, for unexplained breaks. Rojo groped steps for a week in the halls of the National Ballet of Cuba, in a country where the public has worshiped her many times and where she enjoyed a holiday in her own way, among family, friends and some work.
Just a year ago the young professional, at the top of her art, accepted the challenge of leading the second most important company in Britain, the English National Ballet (ENB), and the multiple roles of her repertoire she incorporated director.
When the Royal Ballet in London couldn’t still get over the loss of a supreme dancer, one of its mainstays, the Romanian Alina Cojocaru, left the company and agreed to join Rojo in the cast of the English. British newspapers, authors for years of funny fables on the rivalry between them, were stunned
However, it would not surprise me that Tamara one day will suffer of envy, probably for a superhero endowed with inexhaustible strength to do much for others without rest, since she suffers from a love of work that skirts the danger. She forgets meal and rest times, gets classes and rehearsals, takes over as a teacher and trains others, participates in a lot of meetings, functions, galas, and plans project that distinguish her company and encourage members to grow.
Rojo as a ballerina sheds light on multiple lives of literature as Alexandre Dumas’s Marguerite, William Shakespeare’s Juliet, the Abbé Prévost’s Manon and Kitry of Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote.
“That’s the main reason why I want to dance and the day I retire that is what I will miss most: to disappear into other lives. At first is what we all artists like to, forget our problems and using art to be someone else. Better or worse, but another. For me is the most satisfying, “exclaims the girl of petite body and easy laugh.
As an interpreter of the most coveted dramatic roles, Tamara helps to understand the reasons and outcomes of the stories. Any incarnation of hers can be both stunning and revealing. And for more brightness, Rojo’s technique deserves the highest praises, and she has got them. Numerous critics place her in the Olympus of her time.
The image of Tamara in Manon set a paradigm in Cuba back in the summer of 2009. When the arms of Carlos Acosta the artist’s soul fled the ground to take refuge in the infinite, thunderous applause broke music and shouting was overwhelming. Since then any ballerina trying to do the character in a Havana International Festival must fight the ghost, divine for many ballet fans on this island.
Unexpectedly, the cultural authorities in Spain have not yet granted the National Dance Award to the most successful classical dancer of that Iberian nation, who won the Laurence Olivier and the Benois de la Dance, a wreath equivalent to the Oscar. While Britain uses her undoubted talent and intelligence. The appointment of director of the national troupe took her by surprise.
“That would not have happened perhaps in my country or in other parts of the world, but at the same time it didn’t surprise me because the English manage their cultural organizations in a democratic and transparent way. They foster open process where everyone can present their vision and plan for the future, a panel then meets and chooses the best, where it is and who you are, male or female, foreign and domestic, ” she says without being aware of that only a genius and star dancers have achieved before a similar feat. Leading highly relevant companies excelled in the twentieth century the Russians Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov in France in the United States. A century earlier, the Marseilles Marius Petipa in Russia in addition to directing revolutionized the design, technology and aesthetics of ballet.
Choosing Tamara was a bet on the total brainpower of the owner of a Master of Arts degree in Dance at the University Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid). About the new principal beats a weight now. After a review period in Britain, the British Arts Council in two years will decide which organizations they will continue to fund and which not.
“The only way I can ensure the survival of ENB is to make it a company different from the Royal, with its own characteristics and choreography created for it. My priorities include raising the level in artistic terms, in regard to how to dance, to present the shows and promote them. Raising the image of the company from all angles before the public, the press and the authorities. In addition to fostering contributions to the repertoire of the ensemble choreography and pieces that no other company in England have as our next release: The Corsair “.
Anne-Marie Holmes’ version on Joseph Mazilier, Marius Petipa and Konstantin Sergeyev original choreography, based on the eponymous poem by Lord Byron, will have among its top performers in October Alina Cojocaru, Erina Takahashi, Daria Klimentová, Rojo herself, Vadim Muntagirov, Yonah Acosta, Fernando Bufala-recent acquisition-, and as guest, Matthew Golding, leading dancer of the Dutch National Ballet.
The following proposals will be Nutcracker and a program entitled Lest We Forget, in commemoration of the centennial of World War I, composed of four parts by four British choreographers: George Williamson, Liam Scarlett, Akram Khan and Russell Maliphant.
These initiatives will enable collaboration between arts by this creative artist with forays into fashion, advertising, photography and hundreds of outstanding concerns in the head.
“Next year, for Romeo and Juliet, I asked the associate director of the English National Theatre to help us with the structure of the narrative for the ballet to be clearer. From now on, when I start to create commissions, I use theater people to work in the narrative because we seem to have lost that tradition of the creator of the script, as with every work in the Diaghilev era and previous. Now that the choreographer is expected to do everything, and that’s not right, subject specialists are not by choice, “Rojo said, who will dance this season alongside a very recurring guest partner in her career, the Cuban Carlos Acosta, lead dancer of the Royal Ballet.
“We will also have a music committee for the program Lest We Forget, we will work with composers. I think this the best way for our art feeds on the others and that is a feature of the ballet: the ability to represent other arts, incorporating the best of design, set design, narrative, music, and put it all together in a show, “Rojo notes with the same certainty as Diaghilev, the maker of a wonderful company in the early twentieth century that brought together great artists from various manifestations.
Along her promotion to director she also received the maximum liability on ENB Academy and for Tamara talking about schools is almost like referring to a sacred entity because each style comes and must respect the country to which it belongs.
“The culture of a nation defines the identity of the school, determines how the port de bras are, heads, musicality, among several issues that should be preserved. The technical part of it can develop and, in fact, the dancers of today are not like those of 100 years ago. Other scientific bases have been incorporated to help connect steps, make more balance, pirouettes, and do not think there is a limit. Nor do I think we get to a point where we do not do ballet, as long as you keep the culture of our art. “
However, the English School has not been able to form in many years dancers who lead their companies, despite having all the necessary structures, according toTamara.
“The Royal Ballet has one of the best facilities in the world for students. ENB also, Britain also owns the Central School of Ballet and Birgmingan Royal Ballet School, among other institutions with all the facilities: classrooms, gymnasiums, places for students to live there since they are nine years old, and are given everything. But they are lacking a really good method as in Cuba with Fernando Alonso, to analyze the specific characteristics of the nation and understand how to be a British dancer. That Ninette de Valois started but has been diluted over the years, “the dancer, director and teacher, reggrets.
Another danger on which she alerts that affects the lack of personality on stage, due to a tendency to form more technically able dancers but not always interpreters. “Because you’re missing the culture of our art, the dancers are not being formed with a knowledge of the traditions, styles, how to do port de bras, place the heads and explanations as to why the body goes to forward in a Giselle and why not in Swan Lake, and what connotes Don Quixote, which are the characters of each of the characters and works. Consequently,they create technically brilliant dancers but they are uneducated on their own art, “the Prince of Asturias Prize, an award she shared in 2005 with the Russian prima ballerina assoluta Maya Plisetskaya, said.
Again, this celebrated dancer and young director was also a girl winning a gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Paris. Almost immediately several companies claimed her art and to this day she has not stop working, but confesses that thanks to the accumulated knowledge she loses less energy.
“When I was younger I loved to study and rehearse it all a thousand times because I could not trust it. But there comes a time when you’ve done it, you know you can and you plan with less effort, energy and tests, thanks to knowledge. From this point of view, now I care more because I waste less. The amazing thing to me is that despite my 39 years, some things are easier now than when I was 20, and that is by practice, knowledge and because technically one continues to improve although the body is spent. When I start a new ballet, for example, I will soon debut in Corsair, not like when I started one with 20, when I knew almost nothing. Now I must take different steps but I will tell in a story without having to burn them to get them “she refers to security that so many challenges have given her.
For Rojo each Festival, Gala, premiere, project, are life chances and she tries to live them to the fullest in the best possible way. That momentum during the holiday period of her company returned to Havana for trials and physical preparation to reinforce the soundness of her technique.
“The physical preparation is essential, especially now because every time they asked more of dancers: they jump higher, they do very different techniques. Today it is not enough to be a good classical dancer. You have to be able to make classic, contemporary, creations of any kind, experiment with your body. And to meet the requirement in a safe way you need a good physical preparation, you need to work with physiotherapists or sports trainers who know the dance and dancers know how to prepare, “she advises.
For Tamara, Cuban physiotherapist Miguel Capote has been part of his life since 2004. The specialist for almost 40 years was head of physiotherapy in La Dependiente hospital, working with other artists known as Viengsay Valdes, Carlos Acosta, José Manuel and Yoel Carreno, among many other domestic and foreign stars. The youngest son, Michael junior Capote, also shares a method that could be a seal of work in two directions: physical training and rehabilitation of dancers.
“The experience with Capote has changed my way of preparation for dancing. Since I started with him I have not really had serious injuries, at least I have not suffered an injury due to a badly done move. And I know that when something happens with Capote rehabilitation is very fast and without long-term sequels. It has helped me tremendously. I always think I wish I’d known him 20 years ago because my career would have been different. And if I had a school of my own, now would be asking him to form other generations, “she says with magnanimous humility.
The energy of this woman hides her age well and the flow of articulated ideas she discusses, on any subject, induce an omen or certainty: we are still seeing the prelude to her great career.
Author
Martha Sánchez
