F.uori from the dressing room, after a show in New York, he found Mikhail Baryshnikov. Kneeling. An unforgettable moment, which had to remain secret… «If a journalist – who wrote about it – hadn’t noticed it, I certainly wouldn’t have told it! It was a gift, and not for the gesture (that of a humble person who acts on instinct): her eyes were full of tears! ” remembers Rocío Molina, the “revolutionary, the iconoclast of flamenco”, awarded with the Silver Lion 2022.
“His choreographies, avant-gardesingular and of an innate power, they blend tradition with modern dance styles and impulsosimprovisations: he coined his own artistic language. Radically free, it combines technical virtuosity, contemporary research and intellectual risk »explains Wayne McGregor, director of the Biennale Danza. Which could not have awarded more coherent recognition with the theme of this edition of International Festival (in Venice from 22nd to 31st July): “Boundary-less”, without borders / limits.
Rocío Molina on stage (photo Óscar Romero).
What is the Duende
“Flamenco (since 2010 Intangible Heritage of Humanity according to UNESCO, ed) is really an art sin fronterasborn in southern Spain – between Jerez, Seville, Cordoba and Cadiz – from the crossroads and mixing of various cultures: the gypsy one from Romania, those of the Mediterranean basin and even those of India and America “explains the bailaora 38-year-old Zoom away from his factory near Seville: an old oil factory in the middle of an olive grove (“I need a large space where I can make noise at any time!”), which hosts artistic companies and events. Because Rocío is like this, “boundary-less” even between work and private life. «It is an inclusive dance: you can practice it as a young or old, fat or thin or partially sighted … It is very dramatic, intense, sometimes violent: it is an affirmation of oneself and represents a catharsis. This is why it has such an intense impact on you and on the public ».
Innovation is not always well received. They even accused her of “killing” flamenco …
The “purists” look exclusively to the deep roots, although it is relatively young (the first attestation on a document is from 1774, ed). Instead, it is necessary to understand that the tree does not grow only underground, it also grows upwards and therefore must be fed … I, in reality, consider myself close to tradition: for me “tradition”, “essence”, means genius, freshness, purity , unconsciousness. Truth.
Truth?
Knowing how to listen to everything that vibrates inside me, in my body, and having the ability to make it through dance, without judging whether it is beautiful – not beautiful, of good quality – of bad quality. There is no mistake when what you are doing is totally sincere, dictated by something that transcends you. Truth is giving space to the mystery of what is happening to you. Truth is the Duende.
Yep, the Duende. Federico García Lorca was the first to associate the term with flamenco, yet it remains difficult to explain …
I think it has to do with mysticism: having faith and believing in something we cannot define, which escapes, is above words, poetry, dance. The force that connects you with yourself contains something sublime and divine, and can at the same time connect you with another space: the space of the gods.
Rocío Molina on stage (photo Óscar Romero).
“An emotional hangover”
She will be exhausted at the end of a performance …
Yes, but not physically. It’s like having an “emotional hangover”: you visit places that are sometimes unknown, often painful, and then you have to go back… After all, if you don’t feel emotion, you can’t pass it on. I like that vertigo.
Its modernity also passes through the style: the man dances in a more “vertical” form, arms up or resting on the waist. The most sinuous woman, uses her pelvis and moves her hands gracefully …
… and instead the so-called “masculine” and “feminine” in me constantly mix and compensate each other: art has no gender. A barrier that I try to break, like others that have preceded me. I use power, precision, speed, “hardness”, and, immediately after, I go to the opposite extreme: sensuality, fragility, delicacy.
How did your need for innovation arise?
It was, in part, already written in me. I don’t respond to the physical stereotype of bailaora: I have no black hair, no dark skin, no strong features (Asian, if anything), no grandeur (I’m short). Having to start from these differences, I developed an original discourse with respect to what flamenco understands as perfection… After all, what excites me most about art – and, in general, life – is imperfection. Finding beauty in places where apparently it is not visible.
Rocío Molina (photo Simone Fratini).
“A stage for me”
When did you discover dance as a form of expression?
Soon, around the age of three: I saw a group of girls dancing on the stage in kindergarten and, when they got off, I went, imitating their movements. I have always been silent and shy: dance was the place to take refuge. In Malaga, where I lived, there were no schools: as a child I “imagined” flamenco, I had no canonical references, and this gave me the freedom to invent myself.
He created a choreography at the age of seven.
Maybe even earlier. For sure, at seven I asked my father to build me a small wooden stage similar to that of Carmen Amaya (legendary dancer of the thirties, she introduced the energetic clicking of heels, the first male prerogative, ed). I danced dressed as a man like her, with a stick.
To Carmen the primacy of having danced dressed as a man, to her the primacy of having danced in culotte.
Yes, it was out of the ordinary. I felt the need to show how the flesh vibrates, I didn’t want to hide anything under ruffles and rouches.
Rocío Molina (photo Simone Fratini).
“Motherhood has changed me”
It seems extreme in blending art and life.
Yes, absolutely: I need to live what I dance and to dance what I live.
To the point of going on stage pregnant, in 2018, for Grito Pelao. Was the desire for motherhood or the desire to represent it born first?
At the base there is, without exception, something that happens in my body: I began to feel the desire to be a mother. I wondered whether to stop the activity for a while, but I felt that I had to face that moment in life by dancing. Now I am different, I would behave differently.
Has motherhood changed you?
A lot: it changed my way of dancing and of relating to dance. I realize that I no longer use my art to destroy myself, I cannot afford it: I have to take care of a three-year-old girl. Today I am more aware of the imbalance, and I am looking for a balance … unbalanced.
Rocío Molina (photo Maria Agar Martinez).
“Confession of the flesh”
Caída del Cielofrom 2016, was a reflection on femininity.
It is considered a feminist work, although I do not intend to create “feminist” works. And anyway, if I had to, I wouldn’t do it the same way again. I no longer need to highlight my power to show that I am a complete woman: I am rather interested in “visiting” weakness and discovering new things. Here, knowing how to visit weakness is a true index of strength! Today I dance being a woman without trying to look like men.
In the show he alluded to menstruation, often taboo.
Curious that, with what we suffer, it is seen as something deformed, monstrous, almost repulsive, as well as the transformations that the body undergoes in pregnancy and in the moment of childbirth. All wonderful moments and to be welcomed with open arms: it is this sort of “dirt” that gives life! We have to make it natural and show its beauty, change the mentality.
In Venice, on July 27, he will present a new choreography, eloquent right from the title: Confesión de la Carne.
I feel the need for even more freedom, for a further revolution in the body. This creation is a kind of exorcism to leave the past behind. For three years I have embraced weakness, fragility, insecurity – once again “passing them” with the help of dance (the trilogy Inicio, At the bottom it reels, Vuelta a Uno, ed). Now I have passed this phase, I acknowledge the strength, but I do not know what I will meet … We will find out together there, that evening.
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