An unclassifiable, curious, joyful, indefatigable and intuitive choreographer, Blanca Li has turned out to be, in addition to being a dancer, filmmaker and stage director, a skilful cultural manager who, like a Pied Piper, attracts dance audiences to Madrid's Teatros del Canal .
A slender Granada native with a Mozarabic look, her creative journey is partly linked to the tradition of Diaghilev's Les Ballets Russes and her joint ventures with Coco Chanel. Also Li, the surname of her Korean husband, maintains a singular entente with the great fashion designers. The Académie des beaux-arts has infected her illusion, which has just given her a chair, the first that dance occupies in the French institution. And "it's that Blanca is very smart", say locals and strangers. The Magazine has entered her office in search of the secret of her success.
A spacious office, and with a mirror...
It is to dance at any time. Dancing relaxes me, it's my great secret against stress. When you're sick, anxious or tired, you start dancing and it helps a lot. Sometimes at night I go to a disco.
And here is the poster for his Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker in a hip-hop key. Is there anything left of Blanca Li from the Xoxonees, those flamenco-rap from New York?
Don't think much has changed. I'm still Xoxonee in my soul, I love being a hooligan, having parties, having fun with friends. If I could and had the time, I would continue doing my cabarets with artists who came to improvise. The worst cabaret in the world!
Among the sea of styles that he embraces, hip-hop is his hallmark, and in Paris he helped to open it up to the general public. Will you have a place in the French Academy, which, by the way, you entered even before Mario Vargas Llosa?
The fact that dance is present is already an incredible step, but I want to emphasize that it is not academic dance that enters, but dance. We are opening residences for choreographers at the Cité des Arts in Paris, and in Madrid we have created it at the Velázquez house. We are going to try to insert choreographic art where it did not reach before. When I took over the management of Teatros del Canal and created Canal Street dedicated to street arts, I saw that there were few companies and they had no means. In Spain, hip-hop has not yet taken the step of becoming institutionalized.
His career is one of those that there is not: one year he is at the Paris Opera giving movement to an oratorio put on by Anselm Kiefer and the next he choreographs for robots or forms a tandem with a Bolshoi dancer.
Oh yes, Maria Alexandrova. Someone very special, she is not the typical dancer, she has a lot of personality.
And you, when did you realize you had personality?
Being a gymnast in the national team. He was 12 years old, and our coach told me, "you have a lot of style." Then I understood that what he meant was that I had my own presence, personality. Actually what I wanted was to get into the dance. Gymnastics taught me to work, I developed a unique willpower and capacity for work.
In New York she discovers the blank canvas that is contemporary dance. She gets into all the studios and learns all the techniques. What was Martha Graham like?
My first choreographic experience was a creation for her: a duet. Of the five years I was in New York I spent three at her school and she was still alive and coming. I will never forget her sitting in front of me saying “Congratulations”. It was called Entre dos aguas, on the theme of Paco de Lucía, and I mixed flamenco with contemporary... At 18 I already had my own company.
Artists from all disciplines want to collaborate with Blanca Li, from the musical director William Christie – with whom she takes to the Liceu Dido in June
My relationship with fashion began when I arrived in Paris. I had had a relationship with Sybilla, which she created for my first show, and I found it wonderful how someone can shape a movement through clothing. I discovered that dressing dance is essential. And in Paris, going to fashion shows, I started working with designers, choreographing them. I had an incredible relationship with Marta Margiela, Karl Lagerfeld, Paco Rabanne, Gaultier… Fashion productions helped me pay my dancers. And I also started making movies as a choreographer, for example with Michel Gondry, with whom we made the famous video Around the world, by Daft Punk.
What did you feel it contributed?
Another way of presenting fashion, although there dance could not be above the work of the seamstress. It must serve to give more value to what you present, not to subtract it, you cannot make the model dance.
An artist at the service of another?
I love it, it's a very interesting exercise because it makes you search within yourself, go to places you would never go, and that enriches you. Fashion creators, even though it is an industry and it is something that is sold, they have inspired me a lot. I have met people like Azzedine Alaïa: I sat down to watch him work and I couldn't believe it, she was a perfectionist, she created true sculptures with clothes. And Karl Lagerfeld was obsessed with books, beauty, photography. They are people for whom the arts are a source of inspiration and have incredible knowledge. Imagine what Stella McCartney knows about music!
Have you ever felt that you had to justify yourself for embracing fashion?
No, because my relationship has not been superficial, it has been going on for many years. And the way I dress my work is very influenced by fashion. A ballet, a body, a movement depending on how you dress it counts for one thing or the other, and I have learned that with fashion. I am not in fashion as an influencer, I have come hand in hand with each creator. Right now my relationship with Chanel is very important, because she has helped me carry out one of my craziest shows.
¿Le bal de Paris?
Yes, virtual reality. It won the Venice Festival prize. And I went to see Virginie Viard, Lagerfeld's replacement at Chanel, and I told her: “I'm crazy”: the public is invited to a very elegant ball and they have to dress up, they have to look handsome, it's an experience. And I asked them to have a haute couture collection for the people. They trusted and helped me co-produce it.
And have you become picky about your own outfit?
Ha ha, I'm quite a dancer, I can get up and go in joggers all day and I'm happy, but I love to dress up. In the end, dressing up is part of our culture. At important moments in your life, you look in the mirror and ask yourself who you are and how you want to go.
