Dancer and choreographer, Blanca Lee, runs the Canal Theaters in Madrid and is currently directing her show at the Palais in Paris. Paris ballBlending dance and virtual reality. This 57-year-old Spanish artist enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in October in the Choreography department.
I wouldn’t do it here if…
If only a stranger had not approached me on the street when I was sixteen years old! I was walking around Seville, visiting my darling who lives there. This stranger, who was in his thirties, asked me if I was a dancer, probably because of my personality. I told him that I was mostly a gymnast and that I was just getting started in contemporary dance. I was not completely satisfied because the teaching of this type of dance in Spain at that time was still in its infancy and not of high quality. Every effort has been made into classical and flamenco music.
We began the discussion: he was a German, a journalist, a writer, and also a bullfighter, a wonderful and very educated man. We saw each other again every time I came for a weekend in Seville. We talked a lot about bullfighting, about the body and its possibilities, about choreography. We became friends and he offered to help me move to New York. It was my dream! There I wanted to go learn the dance, which I loved. You have made access possible.
Aren’t you afraid? I was young and didn’t know much about this guy…
never. There was absolutely nothing mysterious about his approach. It was simple and spontaneous. In Spain, people talk to each other very easily on the streets and even in the south of the country. Relationships are formed more easily than in France or England. Before I left for New York, he accompanied me to my parents in Madrid to reassure them and persuade me to let me go. My mother knew I was very determined, and she trusted me. I was already a high level gymnast. When I was 12, I joined the Spanish national team where I stayed until I was 15. I almost made a living and traveled a lot abroad with the rest of the team. I was independent and actually lived a life outside of the family.
It was hard for parents to say no to me because their education was based on the principle that each of their children can choose their own life. This friend helped me find a roommate and enroll in the school of my idol, Martha Graham, before returning to Spain. He was a fairy to me, he changed my destiny. What was supposed to be a stay of two or three months lasted five years. My life wouldn’t have been the same if I hadn’t moved to New York at the age of 17.
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