Carmen Werner has been dancing for five decades. And at 70 years old, she remains a tireless interpreter. "I only stopped once [in 2017] because I fell off a roof I had climbed to talk to the masons. I broke both calcaneus [heel bones] and was in a wheelchair for six months. Even so, unable to move and depressed, I created two productions," says the Madrid choreographer in her rehearsal room. "I did crunches, dorsal and lumbar lying on the couch." And now how is it? "Great," he smiles and smokes at about the same time.
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Carmen Werner: "The dancers who leave the conservatory lack something as important as naturalness"
Next Tuesday, Werner will premiere a new show in the Cuarta Pared room, within the Madrid International Dance Festival, which he has titled 1953 ―the year in which he was born― and that will leave, among other things, the image of a 70-year-old dancer who continues to sweat her shirt and defy conventions, such as that which alludes to the brevity of the artistic life of a dancer. "I don't know many active dancers my age. It's true that I'm not going to wear pointe shoes, but I've never worn them and I'm not interested." Although he reveals little of the work, he does say "that there will be a surprise with a lot of humor that I hope you like."
Carmen Werner is the standard-bearer of many things, but she has not pretended to be one of any. And this creed leads to an attractive slogan that permeates his entire career: that doing without wanting to appear; the work ("of ant", he specifies), flying over everything. Director of Provisional Danza, a flagship company for almost forty years (she founded it in 1987), Werner, as she is known in the world, is the owner of a fascinating combination, quite striking in the artistic lares of yesterday and today: to be one of the great and give the right importance to the issue.
Werner, rehearsing in his studio. Samuel Sanchez
Trained in classical and contemporary dance, in techniques as demanding as that of Martha Graham or José Limón and graduated in Physical Education, the creator has premiered more than seventy works; "I haven't counted them," he says. His career also supplies important awards such as the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (2020) and the National Dance Award in the creation modality (2007), "they make me proud and I don't care almost equally," he explains. And a way of doing dance alien to fashionable predispositions and committed to a way of understanding this art as an instrument to tell things. "I love dance for dance's sake, seeing current trends, enjoying so many great dancers, but the one that really interests me and develops is the one that has stories to show."
Let me tell you
In that gospel of telling more or less concrete stories through dance, there has been room to dance love relationships, fear, goodbyes, madness and even protest against the profession of dance criticism that he embodied in the funny montage Matar el 9 (2005), where passages of what has been written and said about his montages were collected. A mosaic of fragments of life narrated through the body, as the creator warned in the work Conversation Time (2017): "I'm going to ask you a favor, sit down, be aware of what you breathe and let me tell you, to give you this. Then the story is yours, do with it what you want."
Carmen Werner says that although a choreography can travel to many places during the creation process, it always needs to start from something concrete. A book, a movie... In this sense, 1953, his new work, is born from the feature film Harold and Maude (1971), a peculiar comedy by director Hal Ashby that tells the story of a young man obsessed with death and suicide and his relationship with an eccentric old woman. "From the year 2000 I started to introduce humor into my shows," he explains. "My works continue to talk about pain and suffering, but I understood that with that other extreme close to laughter, black gains more. Whenever there is a contrast, the two extremes go up."
A moment from the interview with Carmen Werner.Samuel Sánchez
Along with her, the dancers Alejandro Morata, Tatiana Chorot ―who has also worked as an assistant director with the renowned dancer and choreographer Daniel Abreu―, Cristian López and Sebastián Calvo, a cast of five performers and collaborators who have mostly accompanied her for decades. Theirs is to dance, create and produce, but also to take care of and support those who start. "Because I love it and if someone asks me for help I give it to them."
With a generous and prophetic look, Carmen Werner has welcomed into the ranks of her company some of the most interesting names in the dance scene. The aforementioned Daniel Abreu, Janet Novás, Manuel Rodríguez and a long etcetera passed in their beginnings through the shelter of the Werner, which predicts through the body. "There is something in the human being that has no limit: intelligence, intuition, creativity... It's easy for me to see that in the bodies, beyond the technique, which I also need."
Respected and loved in the world of dance ("it's just because I'm nice," she laughs), Werner doesn't consider stopping dancing. "Once I was asked and I am clear that even if the day comes when I cannot dance on stage, which will come, I will continue to do it at home as long as I can."
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