Maria Canales
Updated Wednesday, March 13, 2024-00:03
What do
Nacho Duato
(Valencia, 1957) and Maestro Reserva de
Brugal rum
have in common ?
The mastery, the excellence, the dedication, the quality.
This is how the renowned Spanish choreographer and dancer, former director of the National Dance Company, sees it, who participated yesterday, March 12, in the launch of the new bet of the emblematic Dominican rum brand.
And he has done so as a teacher/expert supporting the presentation speech alongside Jassil Villanueva, the youngest rum master in the world and great-great-granddaughter of the Spanish founder of the firm, Andrés Brugal, in 1888.
The event has staged
the dedication of a lifetime
to mastery and excellence, on the one hand that of the brand, now embodied with this permanent edition
premium
rum created with caramel pearls, and on the other, that of Duato with its successful career path.
The choreographer, who currently combines the direction of the
Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg,
with which he has been for 14 years, with his travels around the world to premiere his works and with his dedication to the dance academy, Nacho Duato Academy, which inaugurated the Last September, he made time in his busy schedule to speak with METRÓPOLI before the presentation of Brugal rum in Madrid.
What led you to be one of the protagonists of the presentation of a
premium
and exclusive rum like the Maestro Reserva de Ron Brugal? They asked me if I saw the possibility of being with Brugal and I said yes because of what it means to make such a product. exclusive: a lot of dedication, observation, discipline... Furthermore, being a master rum maker, as is the case of Jassil Villanueva, is not just anything, it takes many years of experience and that is something with which I compare myself.
Creating the Duato brand has taken many years, and the same with Ron Brugal and this
premium
quality ... I felt identified with the mastery of making such a special liquid with its own personality, as my choreographies also have. You have joined the launch of Master Reserve as an expert.
What is your best occasion to enjoy this type of drink? I really like cocktails and, since I travel a lot, when I go to Japan, I drink my good sake, in the Dominican Republic, my rum, and in Mexico, tequila.
I really like to taste rum with a little ice, but it has to be a good rum and Brugal is great.
Do you like to go out or enjoy it at home? I don't go out anymore, I'm very old and I stay at home and invite friends.
When I'm in Russia, I live in a hotel and then I do go down to the bar after a show to meet the dancers and have a good vodka, but not too much, because the next day there are rehearsals. Speaking of Russia, is it easy to direct the company of the Mikhailovsky Theater in Saint Petersburg in the distance and in these moments?
I go every month and come back... and in between, premieres.
That's my life.
In reality, we are at war all over Europe and you don't notice a thing.
I am now closer to kyiv than when I am in Saint Petersburg, and in Russia it is as if nothing is happening.
People believe that they are in a bunker there and they are not.
The city is beautiful, with a lot of art, a lot of culture, a lot of ballet, concerts... When you opened your dance academy in September, you declared that you were not a good teacher.
Do you still not want to teach the students? I am a good teacher, but I have 20 assistants who can teach.
What I like is for them to do it and then I go and give the last touch.
The academy is going very well, I have 28 dancers from all over the world and we start the tour in June... There is a lot of work. You have been very critical before about the situation of dance in Spain.
How do you see it right now? It's getting worse and worse.
And as an example, I will tell you that of the 28 students in my academy, only four are Spanish.
There is a total lack of interest.
You see them more in musicals, because it is easier to start singing and dancing in one of those shows than to prepare to dance
to Swan Lake.
, but a musical cannot be compared to the excellence of a classical ballet. Are you still dancing? No, I stopped 13 years ago.
I danced until I was 53 and lasted quite a while.
Sometimes I rehearse, but I don't go on stage anymore. How do you stay in shape? With my rehearsals and eating well.
I walk a lot, I climb the stairs... I have been a slave to my body all my life, but I am already in a context to put it aside and dedicate myself more to my head than to my body.
Do you follow any special diet? I have never followed diets, I have never eaten anything prepared, not a pizza, not a hamburger, not a croissant... without realizing it as healthy.
It has a lot to do with discipline and your DNA.
I don't tend to gain weight, but I try to eat very healthy. Do you cook? Less and less.
I have a very good cook who is from Extremadura.
But today, for example, I made a mess.
Keep in mind that I left home at 17 years old and I know how to cook, wash, scrub...Who would you cook your best dish for and what would it be? A child from Gaza and his family, and I would make them a paellita. How would Is it conquered by your stomach? With an Asian dish.
I really like Thai, Korean, and Japanese cuisine.
I love kimchi... The fact that you have to eat with chopsticks greatly defines the sensitivity and what oriental people are like.
They use chopsticks as if it were a little bird that feeds its young with its beak, and they do not stab or stab a piece of meat with a fork.
I really like the sensitivity they have when it comes to eating. A restaurant for a first date? I go out to dinner less and less and I'm not a gourmet at all.
Anywhere... More than the food I am attracted to the service.
I can't stand rudeness and bad service, bad answers, not knowing how to take your plate away on time or leaving it too long. What is never missing from your table? I really like inviting people home and I like it Always set a nice table, even if I'm alone.
Tablecloths, candles, vases... In addition to food, it is important for me to offer the best you have to the people who come to my house.
The detail is important, I am very detail-oriented. Who would you invite to dinner to get to know better? I have no idols and all my references are dead, but I would love to invite Johann Sebastian Bach.
He is one of my favorite composers and we would have a schnitzel and a strudel for dessert. Who would you never sit at the table with? Anyone who is intransigent and doesn't know how to admit different points of view.
I could sit with people with my opposite tastes, ideals, uneducated people or even with a super-right politician, as long as I am open and can discuss.
But not with an intransigent or rude person.
Is the oven for buns in Spanish society? The oven is too hot, and you have to take out the buns now.
I see everything very tense and it is quite embarrassing.
I am very interested in politics, I follow the debates in Congress live and I see that there is a lot of tension and a lot of intransigence, and that is very bad.
There are more and more fights instead of state politicians who care about the citizens and not their own party. Why do you need a salt shaker? To play football.
I've never seen a game, can you believe it?
I can't understand the fanaticism and the screams for a game? What do you add spice to in your life? All foods.
I usually have a broth or miso soup and a spicy cayenne for breakfast.
I started doing it more than 20 years ago in Hong Kong, when I was on tour.
At breakfast at the Hyatt hotel there was the western part, full of bacon, croissants, chocolates, fried eggs... and on the eastern side, people in slippers drinking their tea quietly, civilized... And I wanted to be like them. ¿ What stops your appetite? Nerves, when I have premieres.
I am a fairly nervous person, and at least because my stomach often closes.
I can go all day without eating, because I forget... and in the end, when I get dizzy, I realize that I haven't eaten. What do you binge on? Music.
I can spend a whole day listening to music.
Furthermore, I am very obsessive and when I feel like painting, I can do it without stopping.
Now I'm reading myself again
The divine comedy
and I can spend all day with it. What does fame taste like? It's something bittersweet. When was the last time you became like a tomato? When they made me an honorary professor at the University of Alcalá de Henares.
He made me embarrassed, because I didn't think I deserved it, and I had to go out to talk and I noticed that he was a little red.
Normally, the awards they have given me make me blush a little, because I never think I have deserved them. What is bothering you these days? The latest PSOE corruption case, the
Koldo Case
.
It has hurt me a lot, because I am left-wing.
I just paid a crazy amount of taxes;
I live and have money abroad, I am single, without family... that is, I pay a lot and I have never cared because I believe it is my duty.
But the worst crime is stealing public money, because you are stealing money from dependents, from children, from hospitals, from people who need it, from the elderly... so it seems to me to be the worst crime, as strong as the of murdering, because you are indirectly making people heal less, have less support and help.
So this corruption has hurt me a lot and bothered me.
Both the one on the right and the one on the left bother me.
I think the right reacts much worse, and the left, better, but it's the same... There is no reaction anymore.
Once you've done it, there's no forgiveness. Do you ride chickens? My rehearsals are very calm, I never scold the dancers or anything, but I can't deal with lazy people who give you shit, it annoys me a lot, so With them I can raise some chicken.
The other day, for example, I was walking out of a Chinese restaurant and I ran into a lady, very cheesy, who said: "Oh, how dirty the Chinese are," and I stopped and asked her why she said that.
She called me shameless and I told her that she was the shameless one (laughs).
"You say that about the Chinese and you come to buy from them?"
But well, that's a lack of culture, poor lady. Is there anything that makes your life bitter? No, nothing... Life is difficult and it's not easy to achieve stability and happiness, but when you look around and see where you are And how bad so many people are having it, you can't complain about anything. What is your sweetest moment? When I go to bed at night.
More and more I remember my mother, that at a certain age she went into bed and hardly came out, because that was where she was best.
When I have a problem, I go to sleep and try to forget about it.
In bed is where I am best now, reading, watching videos...Who is the parsley in all your sauces? I don't have parsley, I don't like it. Do you have bad coffee? No.
I already told you that I eat soup (laughs).
I don't have bad coffee, nor a bad awakening, nor a bad mood. One last toast and why. With Ron Brugal, for friendship.