María Pagés is one of the most important and influential interpreters of flamenco. Her multi-faceted creativity springs from her deep-rooted sense of the importance and ethical value of culture. She creates out of a profound conviction that art makes an invaluable contribution to society and cultural memory, bringing together the uniqueness of ‘I’ and the diversity of ‘others’.
Modernity for the Seville-born flamenco dancer and choreographer is tradition in movement, dynamically encompassing different languages and ideas. She is constantly seeking to expand her knowledge of her genre through introspection and ethnological research, and uses the fundamental codes of the formal language of flamenco to create a living, contemporary art form. With mathematical sensibility, she builds her meticulous choreography around a variety of poetry and music, overcoming cultural boundaries and opening the door to mysticism. Her work uses rhythms of all kinds, ranging from John Lennon to Verdi to Paco de Lucía. Her inspirations also include poetry by the Persian Sufi mystic Rumi, and by other writers including Antonio Machado, Charles Baudelaire, Federico García Lorca and Octavio Paz.
In 1990 she founded the María Pagés Compañia, for which she has created numerous choreographic works. Alongside, she has engaged in a wide-ranging research project dedicated to an open dialogue between the musical traditions of flamenco and other cultural languages. Her work has led her to collaborate with leading dancers and choreographers including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Tamara Rojo and Ángel Corella, and also with the Portuguese author José Saramago and the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
In 2011 the Moroccan author El Arbi El Harti joined the Compañia. He supports María Pagés in the conception and development of her works. These have included her piece Utopia, which won an award for ‘Best International Dance Performance’ from the city of Santiago, Chile, in 2015.
In 2002 Spain’s Ministry of Culture awarded Pagés the Premio Nacional de Danza in recognition of her services to culture; in 2015 they awarded her the Medalla de Oro al mérito en las Bellas Artes. Her other awards include the Madrid Culture Prize (2007) and the University of Seville Culture Prize (2016). María Pagés has won the prestigious award ‘Giraldillo Revelación’ ten times at the Seville Biennale – a testimony to her continuing creativity and artistry.
