You go to Bialystok (Poland), an excuse for flamenco.

Yes, flamenco is international. Wherever you go, there is flamenco! In Montreal, for example, I ran the course, and I also found a group that made flamenco, and we did performances. Flamenco spreads all over the world. In my case, when I wanted to learn flamenco, I went to Granada. I knew I had to go to Andalusia to learn flamenco. There I went and saw a lot of people outside, trying to learn flamenco: Americans, Japanese... This surprised me a lot, because here in Euskal Herria, there was no such hobby. Instead, go to Granada and people from all corners to learn flamenco! “Well, I’m not the only madman who has left everything to learn flamenco.” Some of them were guitarists, other dancers… and all of them, who had gone further than me.

Was there another Basque you studied flamenco in Granada?

It was a Nerea, from Bilbao, and another. And I. Few Basques learning flamenco in Granada. And in Seville we were also few… But there are. On the other hand, I have not met any boy who is learning Flamenco, either in Granada, in Seville or in Madrid. However, in Euskal Herria there are also boys dancing flamenco. A couple, in Bilbao, I guess.

It's amazing. The Andalusians are a machine in Euskal Herria…

Among them, they have extended flamenco, but nothing else. Before, at least, they did so in houses in Andalusia and on other occasions. The courses, the schools… were aimed at their partners, without opening up to the outside. I think they would have done better to open it further. In the 1980s or 1990s, the situation of Euskal Herria was different from that of now, flamenco was not as well known as it is now and, on the other hand, it was excessively linked to Spain, which inevitably led to contempt. I think that if the Andalusians here at that time had tried to expand flamenco, they would not have been well received, and on the one hand I understand it: if in forty years they have been eating the txapela, if it is not normal, they would not have allowed it. On the other hand, however, it is true that flamenco is art, such as the music of Africa or Brazil, and therefore we must move away from these prejudices. Franco was a great fault. It did a lot of harm to flamenco. He joined flamenco and Spain, flamenco and “ole!”, flamenco and bulls, and everything else. This did nothing to Flemish. Much less so in the Basque Country.

And now, is prejudice maintained?

I believe that now is a good time for flamenco in the Basque Country. More and more actions are planned, more and more people are interested, flamenco and prejudices about it are better distinguished... I am from the Basque Country, I am Basque, I like flamenco, but I am not Spanish.

You are not Spanish, you are La Pulga…

.Flamenco dancer, born in Vitoria in 1976, who I started studying ballet when I was 10 years old. First I was in some academy and then I studied dance in the conservatory until the fourth grade. Then, 15 years, and I left, in adolescence: I wanted to do other things, go out with my friends and do other things. I was eight years without a ballet. Then I did contemporary dance, but it didn't catch me. Finally, in 1998, I met flamenco in Zaramazul [the place was closed by the Civil Guard on 24 February 2009]. I liked the applause, one started dancing, the other singing… I hooked up the energy. Then I took a course with Rosa Lahoz in Vitoria and in the summer, in 2001, I went to Granada to do an intensive course. There I realized that if I really wanted to learn Flamenco I had to go to Andalusia. So I went back, I left a little job, I also left the boyfriend… I left everything and I left.

First to Granada, then to Seville...

Yes. I went to do an intensive course and I met Granada, the atmosphere there, I made friends, I met the teachers… “La Presi”, for example, one of the best teachers I have had in my life, but much more! It’s dead… It was an empty machine! I was there for a few years and then I realized that I had been made a little Granada, where there are only four or five teachers. So I went to Seville, because it is a different school: the body, the arms work… in Seville, and I wanted that. I spent four years in Granada and Seville. Meanwhile, I also came to Euskal Herria when I spent money: in about three months working black in one bar and another, saving money and again to Andalusia.

To study…

Learn more. You never end up learning, but at least you have a solid foundation. What a future! If you have a base, you can start dancing with the musicians, you know what the structure of the dance is… Now also, for example, and although I have the headquarters in Vitoria, I go to Madrid every two months to do an intensive course of a week, to learn more. These courses motivate me a lot. In Madrid there is a great flamenco atmosphere, unlike what happens in Vitoria-Gasteiz. Here, people who come to the courses have a hobby, they're not going to be professional dancers. Those of us who meet in the courses in Madrid want to dance, do performances, perform shows: the atmosphere is very different. People work seriously and black, both at school and outside it.

What did your parents say about your fondness for flamenco?

They were flipping! My mother, perplexed. Our father says: “You don’t dance Basque, but you do flamenco.” “That’s what I like!” However, that was at the beginning. Now they come to see me whenever they can, they even like flamenco and they realize that flamenco is not what they thought. My mother, for example, once came to Seville with my aunt. When I went to Seville I went to a busy house: It was called Old Houses. I went and told them I would give a flamenco workshop. So, I met people who were moving through that okupa environment and working in social movements. There I learned that flamenco also had words of protest, that flamenco was also alternative. On Thursdays, for example, we were going to El Pumarejo Square, the civic center, we were meeting old and young people, all a little wrestlers, and that my mother really liked. Then he realized that the Flemish mother was not what he believed, that flamenco could be the protest. You can be flamenco dancer and Etxebarrieta, and Basque, or non-Basque. And that is that I've met a lot of wrestlers around flamenco, who oppose capitalism, the system. There are flamingos who are in favour of the system and others who are against it. As in the Basque Country and among the Basques.

He started making classic ballet…

And I still like it a lot. But the rooster was young, and I left the classic ballet. And two years after I left, I went to see my ballet buddies, and I cried with shame! I left ballet for frivolity and for the weight of high school studies: in the morning to high school, to eat and dance in a hurry, three hours a day. Anyway, if I had the chance to be a classical ballet dancer, it would have been too!

There are, however, differences between classical ballet and flamenco.

Yes, yes. When you're about thirty-five, you can't dance classical ballet. There's no company for this age. However, you have no limit to flamenco dancing. On the other hand, classical ballet is very regulated, the laws are very narrow: you can't walk out of your arms, for example, because it's a serious mistake. In flamenco there is an attitude, there are several laws, but in the dancers each has his energy, and that is what you saw a lot of flamenco. You will see the classic ballet and all the performances will seem a little more similar, as despite the first dancers, they will work the same way. In flamenco there is no. One's energy is much more important. That's why there are so many valleys and there's no equals to each other.

Not the same, there are models.

Models, idols… A Carmen Amaya, for example. It was a piece of woman, a dancer. In addition, she was the first woman to put herself in the shoes. Until then, only men shook. The women carried out arms movements and the like, while the men put themselves to zapate and hit and hit in the hand. Carmen Amaya was the first woman to put herself in the shoes, and on the other hand, she did better than many men. It was an empty machine! Since then, no one has appeared with his legs. She was also the first woman to wear pants to dance. It was Carmen Amaya who danced.

Presi, an empty machine. Carmen Amaya, an empty machine. And Askoa Etxebarrieta, La Pulga?

I don’t know, so… I really like my legs. That's what matters to me: I try my legs a lot, I have speed, although I still have a lot of work. On the other hand, moving the weapons -- and I like them less -- that's where I also have a lot to learn. And it's that I got the soniquet, the rhythms, the rhythm of my feet to the compass -- those things I liked, and I know that when I dance I notice it.

And how have you come to include the txalaparta and the Spanish guitar in your flamenco performances?

We haven't been the first to merge txalaparta and flamenco. Before us, Chua Alba opened the way. He's a Granadan, but he had a dance academy in Bilbao. We have tried to go further. We have researched and given more prominence to the txalaparta than to Chua Alba, we have put it into every subject, until we turn it into the real protagonist. And today, I don't see shows like we do. Yes, it has been a terrible donkey job, the intense weekends have gone more in our head than our hair, thinking this and that, trying, inventing words…

The words are also written by you.

That's where we are. And some of us want them in Basque and others in Spanish. Well, to start with, we have a tango with words in Basque. Own elaboration. We always try to work things out. Next weekend we will also have an intensive day. It's a donkey job, I've already told you, but we all love it.

What has flamenco brought you?

A lot of things. The profession, the motivation to fight every day, an objective… My life! Try every day. It has given me a lot of strength, a terrible illusion. In life, it's very important to be motivated by this or that. If I didn't make flamenco, I'd probably work at some bar, I wouldn't want to work.

You've been excited...

Yes… I feel great dancing flamenco, giving classes. I'm very lucky because I really like what I do. Working at ease, not having to work in another job, in a job that satisfies me... is a lot of luck.