Marianela Núñez: Argentina was again chosen as the best dancer in the United Kingdom

When Marianela Nunez a few days ago he received the award for best dancer from the UK, someone told him “you will have to order a new shelf for your home”. “He’s already in charge,” Marianela replied with a smile. And it had already been ordered.

UK dance and ballet critics make up the prestigious Critics’ Circle, which awards dance awards in various categories. Marianela Núñez has received five to date: the first was in 2002 as “Young promise” and then in 2005, 2012, 2018 and this year as “Best dancer”.

Natalia Osipova – whose extraordinary Giselle we saw at the Teatro Colón last April – was also nominated, who won the award for “best performer of a classical role”, a category in which Marianela was also included.

What can we say without being redundant about this amazing dancer? To give a minimal example, the hundreds of thousands of followers that Marianela Núñez has on her social networks – certainly a record number for a dance artist – find a permanent dazzle in her very short videos, filmed during rehearsals.

Your training history

As surely many people know, Marianela Núñez trained at the Colón Theater Institute of Artbut he began his professional career very early: he was just 14 years old.

At 16 he entered the Royal Ballet in London. At the age of 20, she had entered the prima ballerina level; She remains in this company to this day, but she also makes frequent presentations around the world as a guest dancer. A hectic life, full of artistic commitments. The 2020 imprisonment allowed him, at least, a vacation he hadn’t taken in a decade.

– You recently uploaded a test video for “Swan Lake”. What does this work, so well known and so widely performed, mean to you?

– Something extraordinary happens to me The needle…: like a ballet it can cause extreme things like what it causes me. Sometimes I think what will happen to me when I don’t dance it anymore.

-What are these extreme things?

It demands so much of you; Hours and hours and hours of searching for details, understanding those two opposing characters, Odile (the Black Swan) and Odette (the White Swan). I feel an intense love for this job and at the same time so many fears and insecurities that should make me run away. But no, I’m growing fond of it.

-However, you have been playing “Swan Lake” for many years, does the same thing happen to you over and over again?

-All time. And getting worse. The first time I danced was in 2005 and it made me nervous at first the day before. Then several days before. now maybe already in the three weeks preceding the premiere the fright begins. But when I do that first Odette run, one jump and I’m there, the fullness I feel is unmatched.

-Is one of the two roles your favorite?

-I can’t say which one I prefer; They both create the same love and the same insecurity for me. The first time I danced it here, at the Royal, they told me “with the technique you have and with your temperament Odile won’t cost you”; but I have always felt very close to Odette too.

Collaborate with Alessandra Ferri, a diva

Despite this passionate relationship with Swan LakeIn every sense, Marianela has no favorite roles. Name some of the ballets you love the most: Onegin, Gisella, But not, Romeo and Juliet.

This year precisely he prepared the role of Juliet with one of the greatest dance artists of our time: the Italian Alessandra Ferri, who has danced countless times in Argentina and who has not abandoned her theatrical career. Marianela says: “I would like to have a camera at hand to be able to capture everything I experienced in those rehearsals with Alessandra”.

-How did that meeting happen?

-Alessandra Ferri recently returned to the Royal Ballet (note: it is the company with which he began his career in 1980) and dances both some of her own roles and others created especially for her; as beautiful as everything she touches. She also makes her own productions in a small room in Covent Garden; for example, a job she did with in Buenos Aires Herman Cornejo.

-He lives in London?

-Yes, and we’re almost neighbors. He goes to the theater a lot and we usually meet for pilates or ballet classes. This year I was chosen to dance Romeo and Juliet with Federico Bonelli (Italian dancer, leading figure of the Royal Ballet), who has been my partner in many jobs.

Incredibly we were about to start the lesson and Federico and I approached and almost at the same time we said to each other “Why don’t we ask if Alessandra can rehearse for us?”. We asked the director for permission, she gladly accepted and we started.

-What was the first thing that appeared in you, knowing that you would work with her?

-I have seen her dance many times and I am always dazzled by, among other things, her truth and her artistic honesty, which come from another world. But I didn’t expect him to convey his wisdom and experience with such clarity and precision..

At first it was not presented to me as an easy situation; I already have years of experience and it was not the first time that Julieta danced. However, it was something extraordinary.

How to create an extraordinary Giulietta

-What could you say about that process?

-Alessandra is a very cultured person and she explained to me the character and how she does it together, starting from Shakespeare and the comedy, of course; and then what McMillan wanted to choreographically do with each movement. There is not a single step, there is not a single moment in the work of which he does not have an armed idea.

-For instance?

Juliet is sitting on the bed, after spending the night with Romeo. In the next scene, she covers herself with a shawl to run to find Father Lorenzo and ask him for help. Alessandra told me: “When you lift the shawl and cover yourself, it is as if the angels give you wings to give you courage”.

this kind of remarks. Imagine, the best Juliet in the history of dance, in front of me, making corrections.

Have you already had a personal relationship?

-I suppose she came to see me in class and to discover me, not only as a dancer but also as a person; my insecurities for example.

-Your insecurities?

Yes, my way of “going out” in certain situations. The mechanisms I use to cover myself instead of facing, both when I dance and in life. For example, firmly telling myself “yes, I’m fine, I’m very, very well”, sometimes where I don’t feel well at all.

Alessandra told me “don’t be afraid of being vulnerable”. He “discovered” me, artistically and personally, and it was as if I had been left naked. Going on stage like this is wonderful. It is not a question of representing but of “being”, with my virtues and my weaknesses. To be.

– Any other changes it caused you?

-Something that may seem small: for at least twenty years I have reinforced the edge of my pointe shoes myself so that I feel safer.

Alessandra one day told me: “Enough, it’s not necessary; don’t do it anymore. “And I:” I can’t, I always have. “” Enough, it will be better without that border; you will rise higher, you will feel more at ease “, she told me. Y I freed myself from a task that took me 45 minutes before each performance!

Emotional ties here and there

-You have lived in London for 25 years. What ties, or not, do you continue to have with Argentina, with Buenos Aires, with your neighborhood of San Martín? Leaving aside of course your parents and Alejandro, your partner.

–My emotional bond with Argentina is very strong: My family and Alejandro are there and I have to keep watering those roots because that’s where I came into the world.

But the ones I have developed here are perhaps stronger. Twenty-five years of membership in an institution like the Royal Balletwho opened the doors to me with immense generosity and where no one has ever made me feel as if I came from outside.

I don’t want it to sound like a fairy tale, but everything I imagined as a child, when I started training as a dancer, I got it in this place. Indeed, I have received a lot more than I imagined. I owe them everything. And besides the theater, I admire how people live here and the respect they have for their traditions. I feel a love mixed with gratitude for this country.

wd