Summarize your professional career for us...
I started dancing typical things, sevillanas, when I was six years old. Once I got to the point that I couldn't learn anything else there (it was a neighborhood school and I wanted to learn flamenco) I managed to get taken to Matilde Coral's academy. I did the entire studies of classical Spanish dance there until the age of seventeen. Shortly thereafter, I did some auditions with Mario Maya and I started working with him. I was in his company for five or six years, as well as in the Andalusian Dance Company when he directed it. When I was twenty-three I went to Madrid to begin my training as a soloist, to study, to work with a lot of people and to find myself, my expression, my way of telling things. A couple of years ago I decided to set up my own company out of necessity. There comes a time when you keep on evolving and you need to go elsewhere, to try out your choreographies, to be able to move a lot of people around, to experiment... and that's up to now.
You also trained in other disciplines, didn't you?
I've done some contemporary stuff, but above all, I watch a lot because I like other kinds of movements. Flamenco is fantastic, very enriching, and moreover, has the wealth and the openness to be able to try out other types of cultures, other types of dances, other types of music. There are things I want to tell that I can't with traditional flamenco, which limits me. I need to seek other ways to be able to complement it.
Have you managed to find your own way of expression?
I don't sincerely think I'm a very personal bailaora or dancer. I think I've sought my way to be able to express myself, my movements, what is comfortable for me and enables me to tell things. It's been a combination of things, it's been studying and watching a lot of people, searching for myself alone for long hours at the studio, seeing what I feel good and comfortable with. I don't know, I imagine that he who watches it will perceive so, but with my very own body language.
Where does the secret of Rafaela Carrasco lie?
It might be that I'm different. The years of experience, maturity, and work don't make your dancing change, but make you yourself change inside, and that has to be noticed on the outside. I imagine that is what the spectator can really perceive more; not the step that you do, but rather the place where you are to do it. The ideal thing would be to know where the secret lies to go for the sure thing!
You’ve worked a lot with other great flamenco artists such as Belén Maya.
We love each other very much. We speak the same language, we have affinity, a lot of professional and personal respect, a lot of mutual admiration. We've known each other for many years, we really wanted to do something together, but each one had her own things going on and it was like very complicated to find the right moment. Finally, it's all been natural; a date came out and we said, come on then, the premiere. It's a show of solos and duos. And it's flamenco because it comes out of us and our background and our training is flamenco, but it has another vision. We've been directed by Ramón Oller, who is a great choreographer of contemporary dance, with incredibly original, fun, interesting ideas. He says what we do is poetic flamenco, because there are very pretty images.
Aren't the two of you afraid to be compared?
What we are is very afraid of each other. And no, there's no point of comparison and I hope there isn't any from the spectator. We're very different and each thing we do comes out of a place deep inside. There's a lot of professional respect. I think she's a bailaora with impressive weight and she's at an incredible moment. I believe she's dancing better than ever; she's at a moment of maturity and absolute ease. And her towards me, too. We have our fears but also a lot of mutual support. When one of us has doubts, the other's there to tell her: “No, girl, you're not wrong, it's not like that”. We're there cheering each other on mutually.
Collaborations is exceptional, since there aren't many cases of top figures sharing projects. Why not?
There's a lot of fear and it's silly. We're at ease with what we do and we know that there's no point of comparison; she's her and I'm me. There'll be all kinds of tastes; there'll be people who like one thing more than the other and that's good, that there's variety. The wonderful thing it that, without pretensions, working together a way to display the restlessness we have, without restraining ourselves in any way, without prejudices. We want absolute freedom to create. The sweet thing about art is to be able to create what disturbs you or moves you.
In your view, what is the state of creation in flamenco dancing?
I think the important thing about creation is to be honest with yourself and with what you are at every moment. Each person is at a different place; there are people who have seen more things and have lived more things. There are people who have more restlessness and people who have less, quite simply. There's no reason to ask everyone for the same things because not everybody is disturbed by the same things. I think there are people who'll always be at the same place and people who'll always be flying. The important thing is for each person to be at ease with what he's doing.
And you fly, don't you?
I'm the type that flies, I'm the type that doesn't conform; I get bored right away with what I do. Before doing this show with Belén, I already had two other new projects for my company. I'll do them little by little; I've written it all down so that I don't lose it, because this past winter I was mentally very creative. I'm restless; whenever I'm doing something, I've already got something else in my head. It's good, but it's very screwy at times because you never really live in the present; you're always in the future. It's a need and when it's a need it's fantastic because it comes out of a sincere, honest place. It doesn't come from pretension or from wishing to search for something; it comes out natural. And that's all; that's it, for everyone to feel at ease with what they're doing.
What difficulties to young creators come across in order to take their proposals to the stage?
It's very hard, but it's the same old story. What the world is like, what the country is like at that moment. Everything moves through pure marketing, through television, through the celebrity press. Either you're in there, because that's what people on the street see and what they know, or you don't go to the theater. The programmers, the festivals, the theater directors don't generally take risks; they go for the sure thing, they go for a company that fills up the theater for them, without other concerns. And it's a shame because the people they hire are very good, obviously, but there's a lot more out there that is unknown and is just as interesting or more so. Our problem is to be scheduled and be able to get people into the theater. And that's done by marketing and having a lot of money to do good advertising. Once the people are inside, there's no problem because I think they lack sincere, honest shows. I'm tired of sensationalist shows seeking easy applause; I'm against selling oneself out. I need to be told honesty even if it's very scant. I don't ask for a big deal technically; I don't care if you give me three turns or one or none. What I want is for you to tell me truth and honesty.
What is your analysis of the current scene of young flamenco dancing?
I think that right now the dancing is being done better than ever, but there are also a lot of mistakes, obviously. There's a lot of information about everything, a lot of ability, a lot of training and you have the freedom to choose. You have to allow yourself the freedom to choose the road you want to take, in the more traditional and more flamenco way, or in the way more... It's your choice and it's great. For us to be allowed the freedom to choose the opposite, for us to be allowed to make mistakes because that's where the wealth and learning lie, in being able to make mistakes and in being able to get it right.
It's also true that there's a great generation gap between our maestros and us. And all of this evolution has been halfway between, but not a strong generation of creators. The lifestyle gap has also been abysmal, so we're in another completely different place. It's rather harsh for them to see what we do because they think that flamenco is slipping away, but I don't think so; I think it's a time of searching when people are coming out with the freedom to choose to be very flamenco or to bring out another kind of restlessness. An artist's career is made after years of experience, living through many moments of mistakes and highs and lows, until you find your own way to express, to create, to tell. If not, you're always in the same place, which is OK if you get used to the idea. You can't ask the same thing of everyone; they don't have to have that need, but you have to allow those who do to search.
By the way, why don't you think you're a prophet in your native land?
Obviously, when I found my own road and my way of doing things was in Madrid. I left Seville at the age of twenty-three and I gave up being a soloist of the Andalusian Dance Company, but I was just another girl; a girl with aptitude, but it wasn't me, I hadn't found myself. I went to Madrid to study and to search. Everything revolved around my personal and professional life; it was where I found the man that I share my life with. Belén helped me a lot. People started to get to know me here as who I am. I know that the people of the profession know me and have me there, but in general, I know that I'm much more famous in Madrid than in Seville. And I'd really like to dance in Seville. I saw Israel Galván and I got homesick, really emotional. I'd like to be able to show what I do; that's all. The time will come; it's OK. I know it's going to come, and I might not have been prepared. If it hasn't come, it's because it shouldn't have come. I've racked my brains in many ways, but it's OK; I'm at ease although it's pending inside me and it hurts. Things come up when they have to come up.
Rafael Carrasco will be giving workshops ar Sadler's Wells.Click here for more info
