- Title: GERMANY: SPANISH DANCER JOAQUIN CORTES BRINGS HIS LATEST SHOW 'LIVE' TO GERMANY
- Date: 22nd January 2002
- Summary: FRANKFURT, GERMANY (JANUARY 22, 2002) (REUTERS) ASSORTED SHOTS OF JOAQUIN CORTES DANCING ON STAGE IN FRANKFURT
- Embargoed: 6th February 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: FRANKFURT, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA700383IGKML3XUM98T8BGC7L1
- Story Text: The Spanish dancer Joaquin Cortes is famous not only for having taken the traditional flamenco dance and created his own unique dancing style, but also for his off-stage role as the lady-killer who has dated some of the most beautiful women in the world including Naomi Campbell. Newly single, Cortes has brought his latest show 'Live' to Germany, the first time he has visited the country for three years.
It is three years since Joaquin Cortes last toured Germany with his previous show 'Pasion Gitana' and despite the absence interest in the gypsy flamenco dancer doesn't seem to have faded. The demand for tickets was so great in Frankfurt alone, that a new date had to be added in the city. His new show 'Live' originally premiered last year in Barcelona and since then German fans have eagerly been waiting for him to start his eleven city tour. Giorgio Armani has again designed the costumes for the new show and the lighting choreography has been organised by the famous Spanish lighting expert Juanjo Beloqui, but it is of course Cortes who is star of the show - as he explains: "It is a very intimate show, where I am on my own on the stage dancing for some forty minutes without a break accompanied by nineteen musicians. And it is called 'Live' because it is as though it is a jazz session. And like a jazz session, there are nineteen musicians and a main singer, but in this case the main singer is me and I am dancing instead of singing."
Interest in Cortes is undoubtedly high, as much in his private life as in the way that he has helped raise the profile of flamenco music and dancing around the world, but there are many critics who believe that in raising this profile through developing his own style he has somehow ruined traditional flamenco with, for example, the inclusion of ballet steps.
Cortes rejects this:
"Well I think that it is good that there are revolutionary artists who create different things.
New things, because that is what innovation is about; all the big revolutionaries have always been great visionaries at the same time. They have established something new and this is what evolution is all about. And I think that cultures too evolve, and my culture, the gypsy culture, flamenco, also has to evolve. And I have created a different concept of looking at flamenco and I have done this by creating my own personal style, but this is good isn't it for culture?"
It has long been rumoured that Cortes has plans to retire in his early thirties, a rumour he is keen to quash. However he's making no secret of the fact that he's considering acting as a new career: "Yes well, I have got plans to work more in the film world. I believe that an artist has to look for a lot of different sources of motivation in his life. And I believe we are all like sponges absorbing things, in order to be able to draw on them later, as I do in my case, as a creative artist. So working in the world of cinema, advertising, fashion, music or theatre, all this is good. The world of cinema also attracts me, it entertains me, it lets me have a good time. So this is why I would like to communicate as well via the film world. So why not? Why not try it and see?"
With fellow Spaniards Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas now major names in Hollywood Cortes admits he's considering a number of film offers.
"I've got several offers from the American cinema, from Hollywood and I'm thinking about them, if there is a story that I really like, that really grabs me then I'll do it."
Cortes will be on tour in Germany presenting 'Live' until the end of March. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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