Hernán Piquín has experienced it all: he almost had to stop dancing, he was shot, he was twice Bailando champion and comes back for one last tango

“For the two minutes we will spend in this life, being unhappy is meaningless,” promotes a renewed Hernan Piquin. But it is not just passing rumors that the virtuoso dancer and choreographer, who recently landed in Argentina but has settled in Spain for more than five years, escapes his return.

“My heart guides me, not my mind. When I feel good in a place I put down roots, but when I stop being happy I go and look for another. This is my home in Granada (points). “Now I live in the mountains,” he says Clarion between sips of light soda and a reel of cell phone postcards worthy of framing for their landscape.

“Even if I feel great there and with ten euros you get a return ticket to anywhere in Europe, land and blood always pull,” he adds.

Back on the streets of Buenos Aires, the well-traveled artist doesn’t realize it dysrhythmia when it comes to essays. “I arrived on Monday and on Tuesday I came to the theater”, recognizes the head of a new project, with a tango spirit, which can already be glimpsed from the marquee of the Apolo theater. Hernán Piquín, the last tangoa show created, directed and performed by the two-time Dancing for a Dream champion, debuts on April 4 in Calle Corrientes, at the Apolo Theater.

“The greatest reward is living doing what I love and, at 50, continuing to do it. I fought a lot for this. I lived in Villa de Mayo and when I was 10 I got up at 5 in the morning to go to the Teatro Colón. When there was the strike I took four buses. But I’m not talking about sacrifice, because for me it wasn’t. I don’t like showing off either. You come into my house and you have the living room, a room with a massage table, but you will never find a prize,” warns the elite choreographer, whose reward is reduced to going on stage again.

This time, in duet with Soledad Eat“a formidable dancer from Paraná”, three couples who will perform ballroom tango (Analía Morales, Gabriel Ponce, Débora Agudo, Ale Adrián, Mora Sánchez and Nahuel Tortosa) and the singer Luciano Soria, on a journey that explores the complexity of love to the rhythm of 23 tango milestones. “You can get very interesting things from dance. It’s the last tango, but I hope it’s not the last,” she says.

Last tango on Avenida Corrientes

-It’s never “the last”…

-I hope not. And if it is, I’ll probably do some theater later, not so much dance, but more text-based. A job that was proposed to me years ago and also a special participation in a piano concert, entitled Origin, by a Spanish artist which they will bring to June. But the last tango It’s all mine. It is the story of María de Buenos Aires and Eugenio. A consecrated tango dancer and a bohemian, former dancer who returns to the countryside. I wrote it in recent months in Spain. Whenever you are out, you see tango dancers everywhereeven on the subway.

-As one of the classics you bring on stage says, you always return to Buenos Aires.

-With this we open. And that’s how it is. I’ve always felt it since I was a child, when I lived in London at 16 and, from then on, you always thought about coming back. Even if you are outside and you are well, you are still a foreigner and this surprises you. Even though I have a European passport and a Spanish family, Every time I’m away I want to see my friends, my family, my barbecue and my partner..

-One of your theatrical mottos is that the audience who sees you takes away something extra. What extra credit do you get from this exchange?

-I like them to be moved by what they see, this is what I look for when I go to a show. Maybe not with the main artist and maybe with the last one in line. Also awaken the desire of young people. It happened to me while I was inside Showmatch. Even today they tell me: “I started dancing thanks to seeing you on television”.

In fact, I started with a program on ATC (Hoy TV Pública) called: gala evenings. And when I told my parents that I wanted to dance ballet, from the age of 4, they sent me to swimming, tennis, skating and sports gymnastics. They even sent me to a psychologist to understand why I had this desire to dance.. I remember that I went three Wednesdays and on the fourth the psychologist called them.

Hurt beyond remedy, time gave him reason and the gift of exercising it without limits or boundaries. “When I was 9 years old, the pediatrician who treated me was a member of the Teatro Colón and one day he brought me the basics that my mother and I compiled. We were 2,500 registered and at the last of the 7 exams there were 17 of us”.

A militant of detail, he gives priority to the tests even with the days numbered in his beloved Buenos Aires. “I’m like that. When I’m on holiday I love going out, walking through cities at night when they’re empty because I’m a real night owl. But when I work I’m very focused. I danced on a tour with Julio Bocca with a fractured big toe, in 40 degrees of fever in double shifts, because it is very rare for me to fail”, admits the voracious standard-bearer of the discipline.

-Do you allow yourself to fail or not?

-I can’t fail, I won’t allow it. I can be my own worst enemy. I won’t go on stage if I feel like I’m not fit. I won’t wear a tight shirt if I know I have an extra pound. I try to take it off and have a hard time putting the shirt on. I set goals for myself and until I reach them I don’t stop.

Dancing’s debts

-Were you so critical of yourself in your role as a newcomer on the “Bailando” jury? It seemed like you hadn’t quite adapted to that media game.

-It’s just that I couldn’t be what I wanted to be. Because the show needs an embattled jury to fight and I can’t. They told me, “We need you to be tougher.” And when they asked me, it was, but I felt very bad. In fact I told them: if you are not happy, I will step aside. But the program gave me a lot and I had debts too.

-Was moving away from television a way of detoxing and returning to the origins?

-I never stopped dancing. I was on the show, but I was still touring. Indeed, in the latter Dance Tinelli called me to dance again, but I couldn’t.

-In 2010 you had a car accident in which you overturned and were never able to dance again. Are you resilient in this life?

-Look, (top of shirt slides) I have a metal plate with eight screws, my collarbone was fractured, my fifth cervical vertebra was broken and I was three millimeters away from becoming quadriplegic. I would no longer be able to dance, the doctors told me, and I had to give up classical ballet.

But I really believe in destiny and in the energy that you can manage. That if things happen to us it’s for a reason. The times they robbed me they could have killed me and they didn’t. And I know my grandmother always takes care of me. When they robbed me there were 14 shots and the bullet entered the car through the license plate, hit an iron and fell.

-What country did you encounter in this round?

-What you have to give him is time, because in three months… All these years we all saw that there were bags with money appearing and disappearing, we saw safes with dollars saying: “I don’t know where they came from .” Try to fix everything now, I’ll give it to you. I wouldn’t want to be in the pants of the president or politicians.

-At a certain point you wanted it, when you ran for councillor…

-Yes, but mine were more cultural, cultural projects. And the only thing I asked of Juan Martín Tito, who will be the next mayor of Pilar, is not to have a salary, to avoid them saying: “This guy is leaving, he’s a dump because he doesn’t work. “He did it for culture.

-How do you read the cuts announced by the government?

– He’s very messed up. But we also have to live it… We lived a lie. Today we are seeing dark things, like In some provinces they don’t have money to give water to the population and they have money to hire an artist and pay 200, 300 thousand dollars. Is strong. I know it’s a difficult situation, because I live with my mother who is retired, but we need to open our eyes. And if you fix it by cutting, yes, it’s a pain. She will fall on top of us.

-Have you found the tranquility you were looking for in Spain?

-Yes, it’s a different mentality. From sleeping with the windows of the house open to leaving the car unlocked because I live in a closed neighborhood. It’s a house in La Herradura, Granada, where it’s summer all year round.

And he underlines: «One day I run to close the garage door, which has a door connected to the whole house and when I come back I see it open. I came in screaming and nothing had happened. I talk a lot with my mother, who is 80 years old, about taking her to live in Spain, but she wants to stay here, with her plants. “I lived there with my partner, Agustín Barajas, with whom I was with for 5 years, but I separated in June.”

-Another restart in your life?

-Yes, we talked and reached an agreement. Between the distance, the races, the age… Because he is 35 and I’m 50. Maybe I like staying on the sofa watching a film more and at 35 you want to go out. And his mother, who has the keys, comes to my house now that I’m not there to water the plants because we’re fine. Obviously being accompanied is more fun, because I really like sharing, details and nonsense… But I don’t like getting bitter or getting into trouble. I’m more “yes or no”. I always try to be happy, this is my quest.