Vanity Fair Spain published an interview with the super woman Tamara Rojo ahead of the San Francisco Ballet’s tour to Spain, mid-October. The tour was the first international tour for the company under the direction of Spanidad Rojo and the company’s debut in Madrid.
The interview is in Spanish. So I had to use Google Translate to read. Because of the timing of the publication, it is written to tout how great Rojo is, with more photographs of her with royals than those of ballet. And she is an artist and a business woman. I suspect the timing of the interview was a few months ago because it still mentioned Isaac Hernández as a part of San Francisco Ballet. Also, I was annoyed by the repeated typos for Akram Khan’s name.
Still, I was awe struck as I read the interview. As I said, Tamara Rojo is Super Woman after all. From her start with the Scottish Ballet, ascending to the fame and frustration with the Royal Ballet, returning to and game-changing at the English National Ballet, to the well-documented 60 million dollar anonymous donation to the San Francisco Ballet, the broad brush interview probably does not offer hardcore ballet enthusiasts much new information. However, it is almost beyond belief that one has so much energy to materialise so many beliefs, passions and visions and bring them to the world stage, continuously.
There is also a little bit of personal touch. Rojo is critical how Víctor Ullate, who trained her and many other world-class ballet dancers in Spain, had to close his ballet school due to economic difficulties, and how good Spanish ballet dancers have to look for jobs in other countries.
The full interview is here.