José Carlos Martínez (Cartagena, 1969) feels at home among the old woods of the Palais Garnier. He does not walk with the lightness of when he was étoile of the Paris Opera Ballet, because now he carries the weight of responsibility on his back. After his two terms at the head of the National Dance Company (CND) in Madrid and a period of three years as a freelancer – he was the first Spaniard to choreograph, twice, the New Year's Concert of the Wiener Philharmoniker –, this Cartagena native serious and salty, he was named director of the Parisian company, the oldest in the world, in December. It was founded by Louis La Vanguardia interviews him in his office with a rose window, where the prestige and dreaminess of the house are brewed.
Do you already know the 154 dancers that make up this company?
It's something I want to do, it's essential. I started in December, I still have a few to go.
Did having managed the CND give you points to be asked in Paris to replace Aurélie Dupont?
This is a very different opportunity, due to the means and the place we are in, but it is clear that I would not have been able to manage Paris in this way if I had not been in Madrid before. It meant experience in personnel management, sponsors, productions, tours... All the problems I had to overcome at the CND, the lack of equipment, the fact that they didn't follow me when I wanted to do things... all those wars have been super useful. There are many media here: in the CND we didn't have a single theater, here there are two; We had to go looking for whoever the company wanted on tour, while here we have to stop them. I have the 2025-2026 season almost ready and I am already working on the 2026-2027 season.
Seen in perspective, is there any advice for the CND or Inaem?
The problem that exists in Inaem and the CND is that each person who arrives throws away everything that the previous one has done. And that's not how it's built. Just as Nacho Duato's work disappeared (which when I arrived could not be done), now almost everything we did has disappeared, with the exception of Johan Inge's Carmen, which continues to work abroad. Not even A Night with Forsythe is picked up in Madrid or on tour. And when Joaquín de Luz leaves and someone else comes, his contributions to the repertoire will not continue either. It seems that they take the eight-year term of office for a director literally: they give you the freedom to do what you want and then, the same with the next one. The CND needs to create new repertoire with interesting things. But with few resources it is difficult to evolve because they don't really optimize what was paid for with everyone's money, like the Don Quixote we made. Here in Paris there is a company rule that forces you to pick up things, because we all pay for them.
Did you set conditions for accepting the position here at Garnier?
After my experiences at Inaem, if there had not been the type of contact that I have with Alexander Neef, the mayor of the Paris Opera, I would not have accepted. He makes the important decisions but he listens first and if you explain it to him he can change his mind. He supports me. That is vital.
What does this company need that you can contribute?
Evolve the academic vocabulary, the classical vocabulary, that is, bring the pointe shoes to the 21st century by making creations that use that vocabulary. We have to create that link between classical ballet and contemporary ballet, develop other types of choreography that use the pointe shoe, and see where we go.
He joined the Paris Opera company as a dancer in 1988 and was named étoile in 1997. Have you found it very different?
Things have changed, society changes and the spirit of the dancers is different. Of course, the way of working is the same because it is an institution that evolves slowly and taking it into the future and making it move is part of my job. I feel at home but the situation is different and unexpected.
Will the position allow you to launch in Paris that aspect of choreographer that you were starting?
I'm the one who didn't want to start it. For now I can't lock myself in the studio for a month. I walk away from this office one day and look at the pile of folders.
In any case, his greatest contribution as a choreographer is the revision of the classics, and Paris already has Nuréyev's legacy.
Yes, but it is a repertoire that must evolve, it is 30 to 40 years old and they are the same versions. Now there are diversity issues that must be adapted to: The Nutcracker has character dances with Russians, Chinese... they cannot be represented as before. I don't want to say that they should stop being made, but they have to coexist with other new versions of the classics. Before Nureyev's there were others and there will have to be others after. We have 12 or 13 programs per season, there is room for three Nureyevs and other classical and contemporary choreographers.
How has the level of dancers changed?
Evolution is constant. And the fact that so many contemporary creators have come in recent years has made them grow artistically.
From the CND they chose him to put their pointe shoes back on after two decades with Duato. Is it the other way around here?
The issue is how these two types of dancers, classical and contemporary, can coexist, all of them having interesting things to do. When there is a group of 15 contemporaries, it forms like a mini-family and they work very well. I would like it to be like that with the entire company. There is a need to feel that we are a team that is moving forward. It is not necessary for the 154 to feel prepared to do everything, but it is necessary for anyone who wants to be able to develop to the maximum of their possibilities through programming, to find challenges, to discover things together.
Is the price sacrificing excellence in certain repertoires?
No. In recent years the company has had, for example, a lot of Israeli school: Sharon Eyal, Ohad Naharin, next year Hofesh Shechter. It is about evolving, although integrating other choreographers does not mean that we stop doing the Israelis, who, mind you, are here and have come to stay throughout the world, but neither should the Paris Opera be a luxury branch of the Batsheva.
Nureyev transformed the French school. What point is it at?
He came from Russia and, although he became very Frenchized, he represented a change in technical difficulty. There was not the spectacularity or the jumps of the Cubans, but there was that difficulty in basic exercises. The Russians always say: “We have the arms, the upper part work, and the French have the lower part, the drum work.” I think that's still the case. We must evolve so that this upper part is worked on more.
Why is the French school characterized by containment and a certain lack of expressiveness?
The containment comes from being concentrated on the technical work of that basic part, so clean, that gives it a purity. I don't talk much after the shows, but the other day I caught them in the studio: “You danced very well, but if you had to do 20 steps you would get bored; I would like you to see the spark.” Someone said that they were afraid of doing too much because there is this story that to dance here you have to do everything perfect and not stand out in anything that is not planned. The challenge is for the 32 Shadows of La Bayadera to each shine with their own light.
Are there any dancers from your étoile days who are still here?
There are people retiring and they were young people then, and there are those who were studying, when they were 8 or 12 years old. I choreographed Scaramouche for them... and now they are professionals. It is very strange because they have changed a lot: they are 30 years old.
What is the pressure of the passing of the years in this company, knowing that at 42 you will retire no matter what?
There are those who live it better, others worse. I lived it well: he had already stopped dancing in my mind. He happened to make La Bayadera at 40 years old. In the middle of a quick change of clothes to go out to the third act, I stopped and said to myself “what am I doing here? If he already danced that when he was 27! I didn't need it anymore. And the funny thing is that the most beautiful photo I have is from that day, right after entering the scene: a super tall and beautiful grand jeté. I continued dancing for two more years, but it was no longer the same.
