Rodrigo Arena incorporates his own life into his works. Photo Juan Manuel Foglia
From the first steps in tango, always in high school, to his current show The case of the Rodrigo Arena against contemporary dance -title from the undoubted connection of these times-, Rodrigo Arena it has traveled a path of disappointments and impracticable goals.
However, aged just 31, he is now in a place that many independent choreographers would like for themselves: the upcoming presentation of El Case de Rodrigo Arena at El Cultural San Martín follows its premiere at the 2022 Buenos Aires International Festival; He has also presented other works in official spaces and has received invitations from abroad.
Rodrigo defines himself as a transgender person, or more simply trans. He says: “Until recently I was speaking exclusively in the male, but then I relaxed: I go back and forth from male to female, many times in the same day“.
Beginnings in dance
Rodrigo Arena seems to have been mistreated by the dance world. And he tells it in his works of him. Photo Juan Manuel Foglia
-How did you get started with dance?
-At the age of 15 I was already dancing tango, or learning to dance, in a club in Adrogué. I enjoyed it so much that I started taking one to one lessons with a partner. I wanted to devote myself to tango and it was something very crazy because it woke me up with a tremendous infatuation, a passion that started when I heard Of a head in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was the first time I recorded tango.
-And then? Why didn’t you finally dedicate yourself to dancing the tango?
-One day the teacher was absent and the woman asked me if I wanted to take ballet lessons right there. They were expensive, 35 pesos at the time, and I paid for them by handing out flyers at the Adrogué barrier. The dance lessons dazzled me; I felt I had to be a classical dancer. At that time I was still a woman.
– Did you think that at 16 it was a bit late to start studying ballet?
Yes, and it bothered me a lot. I started preparing for admission to the former National School of Dance and trying to make up for lost time. My teacher from Adrogué told me: “When you arrive at the Capital you will find yourself with very difficult things, many demands; they will treat you badly“. I thought we were both part of the movie Flash Dancebut he was right.
Was she a good dance teacher?
Rodrigo Arena tried to enter the Instituto del Colón, but did not pass the first test. Photo Juan Manuel Foglia
.I did not know anything. To the great battalion (note: a ballet exercise) I called him Batman. He said the steps had to be done by making faces, very strange faces. It was a very bad dance, but it was still good for me. I entered the School of Dance almost at the limit of the lowest score and even though I have no birth conditions, I have an obsession born and I have improved.
When he wanted to enter the Colón
-And you too wanted to enter the Instituto del Colón?
Yes, at that time I was attending a huge number of classes. To go to the Colón the weight they asked me was 42 kilos and I weighed 60; I lived on half a cereal cookie a day and felt on the verge of death.. I went down a lot, but not enough and I didn’t pass the first test. I tried two more times and gave up. But ballet is still my passion.
-Have you tried other places?
-In the San Martino workshop. The first test was walking and they told me “I came out fat”.
-It seems strange that they told you “I came out fat”. They are all very nice people.
– (laughs) Well, no. It was somewhere else. I finally completed the National School of Dance, I arrived at IUNA, I did other trainings and in 2011 I created my first opera because I knew I would never be able to join a company.
I had already come out as a lesbian and I saw that there were no lesbian scenes in the dance, so I chose this line. But I knew I wasn’t going to get a job as a dancer, so I decided to join the army.
Rodrigo Arena joined the Navy, to which he finds similarities with ballet. Photo Juan Manuel Foglia
– To the Navy?
-Yes, and in training I broke my knee.
-How did you join the Navy?
I’ve always enjoyed being in the army. Discipline, orders and mistreatment. I find many similarities with ballet.
-For instance?
–Precision, question, psychological abuse. Even if they are things that have always amused me.
-Not all dancers live the things you have experienced.
-All the people of my generation who have dedicated themselves to dance, at least those I know, have had similar experiences.
Back in the Navy, after that misadventure I have nothing left: farewell to the dancer, farewell to the soldier and a great depression. Then I went out and began to discover the use of the voice on stage, the disappearance of the fourth wall and the possibility of questioning the audience. And also to stage things that are part of your own life.
That’s where my first artwork came from, My days without victoryabout a frustrated love affair with a girl.
The story of my life
Rodrigo Arena’s works have an autobiographical tinge. Photo Juan Manuel Foglia
-Do you always feed on your life experiences to create a work?
Yes, I can’t do without it. But now I want to put the bio-drama aside a bit and create more fiction.
-In the first presentation of “El chance…”, within the Buenos Aires International Festival, it was not clear which contemporary dance I was condemning.
-Before doing the work I was very sure what contemporary dance was. Now I’m not that much; I realized that I do contemporary dance myself, so I corrected a few things.
-What was contemporary dance for you before you did the job?
– Hippism, mediocrity, falsehood, snobbery, lack of passion.
-Everything? And who did you attribute these traits to? To the dancers, the operas, the choreographers?
-Everything. I just leave out people from the 90s onwards. But what I have consumed, from 2000 to here, is a garrón.
-And what have you corrected in the version you publish now?
-Now I conclude by saying “contemporary dance is me”. That means, I’m the same critic. It was a missing piece.
– So now you find in yourself what you criticized? Hippieism, lack of passion, mediocrity and so on?
-No, because I do a good contemporary dance.
– In your works and in the statements you make, your failed experiences are very present. Are they also the fruit of your resentments?
-Yes, yes; I am full of resentments.
Information
The Arena Rodrigo case against contemporary dance It opens this Friday, July 16, at 8pm. The services are on Saturdays and Sundays at 20:00, until August 28, at the Cultural San Martín, Sarmiento 1551, CABA. General admission: $ 800; students and pensioners, 700.
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Laura Falcone
Source: Clarin
