Tamara Rojo, the Spanish ballerina who has taken the British dance world by storm, yesterday delivered a stinging attack on her country's attitude to culture. The prima ballerina blamed the Spanish government for failing to make the best of its home-born talent.
"I have no plans to return to Spain," she said. "In London, I am OK. The British make the best of each person. They don't have the same fears or complexes as here [in Spain]."
In an interview with the Spanish daily El Mundo, Rojo, a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet in London, said good ballet had not been seen in Spain since Russian dance troupes toured it in the 1940s.
"For a long time we have not seen good ballet here. That's to say, good performances which merit being called ballet. That atmosphere has been lost. Nobody tries to carry on that tradition," she said.
"It is not this [elitism], nor the price of tickets - it is more expensive to see football. No, the real problem is lack of creativity and the lack of support from authorities makes dance distant from most people."
Rojo, 34, who was born in Canada to Spanish parents but grew up in Spain, has won a series of prizes, including the Prince of Asturias for Arts in 2005.
She has agreed to head a new Spanish national classical dance company, but so far nothing has happened. Rojo blames this on the fact that most of the talented Spanish dancers work elsewhere. "The politicians do not realise how hard it is to start a dance company when we are all abroad," she said.
Rojo also criticised the state of Spanish theatre and film, which were "not going through a great moment".
"Here they do not create the necessary structures to favour creativity, rather the different governments intervene without having a clue," she said.
