Nacho Duato: "Miguel Bosé is lying. I was not the love of his life, we were together because we were two cute kids and we liked being looked at"

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Since you have a reputation for not mincing words or squeamishness, I shoot: who was to blame for your abrupt departure from the National Dance Company? 14 years ago, a Minister of Culture told me to leave because, according to him, my success eclipsed the Company. It bothered them, for example, that we went to New York and the posters advertised my photo and, in a corner, a small logo of the Ministry. What they don't understand is that the managers want to fill the rooms and what I was selling was my image, like when they put up a giant poster of Cristiano Ronaldo in Puerta del Sol. They couldn't stand it. You took the bag... and on that day a year ago. I told them: "Perfect, hire a director who will do it badly." And that is what has happened. It has been like going from

business

to third party. They will never apologize to me, although they know very well that they were wrong. You direct the Mikhailovsky Theater in Saint Petersburg. How is life in Russian lands? I work with 180 dancers, some of them the best in the world. And with two orchestras, a choir of 150 people... It's another division. And what does Putin say? Go ahead, he is not my friend and I do not share what he is doing. But he has come to my premieres and when he finishes he is interested in our work, he visits the

backstage

and has a glass of wine with the dancers while talking about music, literature, theater... He is a cultured guy, he plays the piano, and I like that. Nobody here even knows what

The Nutcracker

is . Aren't you giving me too many headlines? I hardly get called for interviews anymore because I let out four awkward animal things; When I tell the truth I come across as unfriendly because, deep down, I am criticizing Spain. But how do you explain to a fly that honey is better than shit? That's what happens in this country. It happens for example when they ask me about my next projects; I can tell them, but no one is going to find out anything. Try it... Well, I'm going to Novosibirk, to put on

La Bayadère

by Minkus. Have you found out something? No, right? What I do? If I talk too much I'm a fool, and if I keep quiet, I'm an idiot. What I've said: you're a piece of cake, be it the part. Now that I've set up the Nacho Duato Academy in Madrid, no one has asked me, no one has given me the Congratulations. Because? Because they are afraid that I will return to Spain. Here everyone lives very well and anything goes, and if I returned, I would start raising the bar. Come on, tell me about the Academy, don't let it be said. Led by former dancers from the National Dance Company, we teach the international postgraduate program

Nacho Duato Trainee Program

, a platform for young students to later join professional dance companies around the world. Did you have it worse than Billy Elliot? Billy Elliot's father supported him. He only accepted me when I was successful, which is the easy part. But it was not his fault, but that of a country where dancing was for girls, and where the Secretary of State for Culture referred to me as "the mountebank." Torture, drugs, racism, war, suicide... What a lot of issues were raised. out of his sleeve for his choreographies. Are you naturally pessimistic? Torture, war or suicide are not pessimistic topics. They are realistic and affect me. When I read the biography of Harvey Milk, the gay activist senator from San Francisco who was murdered, I said to myself, “The first thing I'm going to do is come out of the closet. And if I'm just going to create ballet to entertain, I'll leave it. I need to commit." Well, you've committed yourself to the hilt. I have done things about terrorism when it was the order of the day, or about drugs because my sister died because of heroin.

The Nutcracker

is very good

for the children, but if we stay there... And what about love? The thing about falling in love is said very lightly. I get infatuated, yes, but after a few months I get tired and the "let's see how I throw this guy out of the house" thing comes along. How unromantic you have turned out to be... I just don't believe in love for everyone. life. About getting married, then, we don't even talk? I don't believe in marriage either, and even less so in gay marriage. I do not understand that homosexuals want to get married, when it is an institution that has failed; There are nine divorces a day in Spain, and suddenly gays want to live as straight people. And that thing about how you would have liked to be heterosexual? I'm very happy the way I am, but they asked me if I were born again, I would like to be different. Even if I were trans, because I already know this life and that way I would have another experience. Miguel Bosé has said that you were the love of his life. Confess...That's a lie. Lately he's been fixated on me... We were together because we were two cute kids, we loved going places and having everyone look at us, period. What a crush or anything! We have loved each other more as adults than when we were young. Hasn't it bothered you that I put you back in the spotlight? Yes. And without asking my permission or advice. I'm not talking to him right now. He insists that he was very happy with you. Well, there's also that whole freedom thing. That Spain was much freer before. Anything to add? What happens to Miguel is that he is bounced back to Spain, where he had to leave due to a debt with the Treasury. He now lives in Mexico, a country that last year claimed thousands of murdered lives, and he was even robbed in his own home. And yet, since everything he does or happens to him is the best, he says that it is the most wonderful place in the world, that they have welcomed him like never before... That is why he speaks this way about Spain, which before was only freer to do jokes about ladybugs and 'my husband hits me' at New Year's Eve galas. What idiocy. Does one become more conservative with age? Being avowedly left-wing... People on the left do not have the heritage of conservatism. In Russia, for example and despite Communism, people are faithful to the traditional values ​​of family, homeland... I am leftist, yes, but for me the most important thing is music; and when one loves art so intensely, one lives in a more calm way, with more substance, more depth... Are you happy, if I may be so ordinary? Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote: "Let's pretend that I am happy." That's how I am: faking it, not being it. Now I am serene and back from everything, I control my work more... And although my body is destroyed from so much dancing, old age, wrinkles and white hair seem beautiful to me. Before I bathed in Ibiza, then I sailed on a boat and now I like to contemplate the sea from a terrace. Nice metaphor for life...You learn to look from the sidelines.And I told Miguel Bosé the same thing some time ago: «Don't sit in the front row, because we have already been there for a long time. Let's sit at the back, see what happens, and if we have something interesting to say, let's say it quickly. Older people no longer have the same grace, ridicule lurks... And another piece of advice: after 40 it is forbidden to talk on Skype, because the light is terrible and we look very ugly. In 15 years, what? Oops, 15 years is a long time. I hope to die before. I would love to do it in the shade of an orange or lemon tree, in Valencia, my land. But my grandfather lived to be 106, so maybe I'll have to wait a little longer...

• Articles Javier Cid