The incomparable María Pagés looks back on her beginnings, the most important moments of her career and those encounters with great figures with whom she has shared and shares a world imbued with creativity and dreams. From that shyness to his relentless drive to excel, this interview is a delight.
In this interview* Pagés recalls those times when classical dance was fundamental for success in dance, as flamenco was not so highly regarded. Also when she was told she was too tall, or when she decided to go solo on her project “suffering disrespect and sexism”.
Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts 2022 (together with Carmen Linares), she is a universal bailaora, with a strong social commitment to making dance useful to society, as well as promoting flamenco wherever she goes.
María Pagés: “I learned from Gades how flamenco should be in the artistic elite”.
He began his professional career with the Antonio Gades Company, appearing in plays such as Carmen and Bodas de Sangre. From that period she remembers Gades and his love for flamenco, something that is also inherent in her.
Thus, for this purpose, he leads a company based in a center located in Fuenlabrada, Madrid.
“The María Pagés Choreographic Center was born from the will of a city council that makes it is own the proactive work of a territory for the benefit of dance and of a choreographer who wants to be useful to her community and environment, both based on her non-negotiable ethical commitment to the Spanish and universal cultural and choreographic heritage”.
More: Centrocoreograficomariapages.org
It also gives its name to a foundation (FMP) that is very active with disadvantaged social groups”. This is how she explains it:
“The FMP transforms the human experience, knowledge, and values of María Pagés into paradigms of creative and socio-cultural action. […] It provides support for emerging artists, students, and pupils of dance, including all its languages. It opens the door to dance in general, and flamenco dance in particular, to children, teenagers, people at risk of social exclusion, people with other abilities, women, and elderly people who suffer from unwanted loneliness”.
*María Pagés gave this interview for the magazine Figuras, published by the Centro de Documentación de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música. INAEM (Ministry of Culture and Sport).