One day, after finishing dancing, María Pagés (Seville, 61 years old) felt an itch in her foot. Looking at it, he discovered that the wide end of a nail had been stuck in one of his shoes. When he took it out, it began to bleed; She had been so absorbed in art that she didn’t even feel pain. It is just a real example of dedication of the body to dance that, in it, is also metaphorical: this dancer and choreographer considers that dance was not even a choice, but rather an inexorable vocation. “Dance is like my eye color, it is part of my genesis as a person,” he compares in the interview in this video from High beamsa Renault project dedicated to showing the journey and projection of Spanish talent.
The car that accompanies this trip
Renault Symbioz
In the video that heads this content, the choreographer María Pagés climbs onto a Renault Symbioz E-Tech full hybrid to travel through the places that inspire her.
Get in the car
The choreographer, winner of the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts in 2022 ex aequo with the singer Carmen Linares, was determined when at the age of 15 she told her parents that she would go to Madrid alone to continue with flamenco dancing. And she kept it in the darkest time, when during her adolescence, at the National Ballet school, a teacher called her a whale: “She toughened my character and gave me something fundamental in life: understanding that you are capable, that you have that strength to overcome difficulties.” This experience, which could have been traumatic, inspired him to launch the Whale Projecta residency program to support emerging artists.
After more than 40 years on stage, the Andalusian considers that what gives meaning to her career is “her commitment to the profession.” That is why she created the María Pagés Choreographic Center in Fuenlabrada six years ago and that is why on November 21, the Matadero Dance Center opens, both in Madrid. “It was also thanks to that magical and decisive union with El Arbi El Harti, my life, creative and project partner,” he explains. These spaces are, for her, a way to give a home to the sector and to culminate the tradition: “Madrid is where the most dance is programmed, where there are the most companies, and it has not only to do with the fact that it is the capital, but with the fact that “It is a place of welcome.” Pagés claims the role of the public as part of the work – “You share with them and they with you” – and the inexhaustible power of art: “Experience gives you the ability to discover more things, and this is what is unstoppable and beautiful… The dance has no end.”
“Dance needs spaces to live, a home to grow, where to create, where to be welcomed”
María Pagés, a legacy to the rhythm of art
CREDITS
Editorial coordination: Juan Antonio Carbajo and Francis Pachá
Writing and script: Claudia Vila Galan
Video coordination Quique Onate
Production: Valentina Marín and Adriana Simón Fadeeva
Realization: Paula D. Molero and María Page
Camera operators: María Page, Paula D. Molero and Quique Oñate
Edition and color: Paula D. Molero
Sound: Christian Aira Bewick
Design coordination: Adolfo Domenech
Design and development: Belén Daza, Juan Sánchez and Rodolfo Mata