“In my view, there is no dance without dramaturgy”

El Loco premiered in 2004. What made you take part in the creation of this ballet?

El Loco was a project I presented to the then director of the BNE, Elvira Andrés, whom I would like to thank here for the enthusiastic welcome she gave to my dramaturgical fiction about Félix García and for her immediate interest in turning it into a ballet.

What does it feel like to see one of your works restaged after so many years?

It is a great joy. The fact that Rubén Olmo has made it possible to bring our “Loco” back to life has allowed me to delve more deeply into the way the story is told and, above all, into a richer creation of the characters — beginning with Félix himself — which I believe is more satisfying for everyone.

Is it difficult to create a narrative ballet and make sure the audience can interpret it?

One might think there is “pure” dance, without a plot, and another kind that tells a story. In my view, there is no dance without dramaturgy: without some kind of structure that gives coherence and meaning to a choreography, to its “plot”. A further step is taken when we refer to narrative ballet: a longer work that seeks to convey a more complex story with temporal development. Here, flamenco ballet faces limitations — not so much in terms of its own potential as in the choreutic development of its narrative language. We must not forget that flamenco ballet has barely had real time to experience its own evolution, unlike other dance forms, such as classical ballet, which have been developing for centuries. My main effort was aimed at achieving a point of view and a development of events that were clear and concise enough to allow the dramaturgical convergence of the creative team — Javier Latorre, Mauricio Sotelo, J. M. Cañizares — and the artistic team — Jesús Ruiz, Nicolás Fischtel.

Was it easy to research and study the life of a figure such as Félix Fernández?

When I became interested in Félix Fernández, I found little more than a “biography” with a great deal of fiction in it, along with scattered references passed down by people who shared the adventure of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and the premiere of El sombrero de tres picos in 1919. But this was not an obstacle, since my aim was not to write history, but rather to create a fiction through which to reflect on the artist and his ghosts; while also paying due tribute to the great Spanish creators — Falla, Picasso and others — of the interwar period of the 20^th century, and to the genre of Spanish ballet, turning it into the protagonist of a new ballet.

How do you convey to each dancer the character they have to portray on stage?

It depends on the dancer, but it is essential that they know the proposal in depth, the specific situations and the processes that take them from one to another. I insist that the steps and each variation are nothing more than the syllables and words with which they communicate, and that, for this reason, they have to give them concrete meanings and link them properly within the choreographic “phrases”: within the full choreographic discourse. And finally, that their dance discourse serves to transmit emotions and feelings: they have to show the soul.

From the El Loco of 2004 to the one we will see in 2022 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, will we find changes, or is it still the same Loco as before?

The show is basically the same, although both Javier Latorre and I have subjected it to a radical review, which has led us to more concise solutions in some cases and, above all, to an updating of the dance and dramaturgical languages, as well as a deeper treatment of the characters and conflicts.

Even so, the greatest novelty lies in the performers themselves — the soloists and the company as a whole — who recreate the events narrated in their own way. And excellently, I should add.

Do you think there may be people who identify in their own lives with the figure of Félix?

Beyond Félix’s pathological madness, what El Loco tells is the drama of the artist’s disenchantment, the heartrending conflict of a man who, in the manner of Don Quixote, lives his own reality transformed into a world he does not understand and feels to be radically hostile. My “Loco” has much of the Quixotic character about him.

One last question. If you had to take part again in the creation of a new ballet about Félix Fernández, would you make the same one, or would it be completely different?

It is something I have not considered. I am happy to have this second opportunity to recreate the Félix Fernández I imagined in 2004.