Paula Salate: "Dance is for any age and for any body"

—In Villaguay, right in the center, on San Martín street, which is the main street, five blocks from the Santa Rosa hospital and five from the square. You grow a lot.

—Other places of reference?

—The most beautiful thing, the municipal spa and various plazas, although the one we always went to ride our bikes was quieter and bigger, it's Walt Disney, where all the characters were and there were lots of games.

—What else did you play?

—I rode my bike and in the hammocks, and I drew since I was three years old. The only sport I did was volleyball but I don't like sports.

—What were you drawing?

—The family, and then the human body and dancers.

—What work activity do your parents do?

—My dad owns a transportation company and my mom works with him. She is a classical dance teacher, she never practiced and she supported me.

—Did you feel a vocation?

—I wanted to be a comparsa dancer and a Saturday Passion dancer (laughs); I was always focused on dancing, since I started at the age of eight, because I was very shy and did not socialize with people. My mom always told me that I'm a different person when I'm on stage.

—Did you start with classical?

—No, jazz dance; They took me to classical but I didn't like it and I was bored. I received myself at the age of 15. Jazz dance came to dismantle the structure of the classical, although it is based on it in terms of posture, but it also has its own lack of structure and musical issues. After jazz, all kinds of music began to be used, now it is very commercial and has merged a lot.

—How did you originally experience these styles?

—It was good because they used trendy music, they took it more towards games and body expression, we were many, a very nice group with which we traveled to many meetings and competed in festivals in Córdoba and Buenos Aires.

—Did you read?

—When I was little, not so much.

—What high school subjects did you like?

—I was going to an accounting school and I loved Mathematics, so when I finished I came here to study Economics, I did two years and I left. I did not dare to go dancing in Buenos Aires.

—How did art and numbers coexist?

—I liked both. I would leave school and go dancing all afternoon and on weekends they would take us to other cities to do courses.

Paula Salate Danzas 3.jpgPhoto: UNO/Juan Manuel Hernández

A “mom” who gives a lot

—Any teacher in particular?

—My teacher and trainer since I was little, Zulma Puppo, well known and whose institute celebrated its 40th anniversary. She introduced us to the whole world of dance and she taught us everything she could, with the resources she had. We all call her “mama” because she is our dance mother, with whom we get together and keep in touch.

—What were the first key things you learned with her?

—Discover another way to express myself, because I spoke little and didn't socialize with my friends. Until today it is my grounding cable, along with other arts such as music, drawing and painting, which I also do, since in Villaguay I studied Drawing and Painting. The workshops that I give are connected: in addition to initiation to dance, there is an art and body expression workshop so that the children, in addition to painting, work with the body and from the theater.

—Your jazz dance references?

—In Argentina there is no Julio Bocca of jazz dance. Worldwide, Bob Fosse, for his musicals; for me, Chicago is the best.

—What surprises you technically and choreographically when you see that performance?

—How he made his dancers work movements copied from animals or from his imagination. There were stooped backs or they walked crookedly, but always elegant, which shocks me. His steps remained in history.

—How developed is jazz dance in Entre Ríos?

—In all the towns where we went to dance, there was a group, although it is not known as such.

—In what context did it arise?

—There are different branches, but it was with the arrival of the Afro in the United States, although there is no precise investigation in that sense and on its evolution. There is also no one who is considered "the father" of jazz dance. The first thing was the afro, then the funk and thus different branches and fusions until reaching the Latin, like salsa. Within jazz, there is contemporary, street (street), which is the newest and fused with hip hop, Afro, Latin... It is said that classical dance is the mother of all dances, but for me it is not, but it was the best known.

—Which has been the richest from an artistic point of view and as an innovation?

—I don't know… it's all mixed up. Last year I graduated as an Afro-Caribbean rhythms instructor and I discovered another world in which you realize the fusions, because they are the same roots.

Villaguay and Paraná: town things

—When did you start teaching?

—At the age of 13 I started helping my teacher and I always liked it, more than being on stage. However, when I got here I felt like an ant and it was difficult for me to enter the job market. I started working with another girl from Villaguay and I kept perfecting myself until four years ago when I decided to open this space. It costs a lot, even to make a sample, because they don't give you a date.

—What other contrasts did you notice?

—The first years we went back to Villaguay on weekends and I only made friends, from the field of dance, when I was three or four years old. Paraná is not a town but it has the soul of a town, I don't like big cities; It has many activities and cultural spaces, so I'm comfortable. While in Villaguay you can't even do a play because the people are very closed, although they pay a lot when someone from Buenos Aires goes. I tried to take my works to Villaguay and I couldn't, they don't have the habit of consuming culture and they don't even support musicians.

—Do young people emigrate?

—Most of them go to study elsewhere when they finish high school and some return when they graduate. I wouldn't go back because I'm bored.

—Do you remember an important urban or sociological change?

—Grown a lot by Kinesiology College and there are some improvements.

—What panorama of dance did you discover when you arrived in Paraná?

—There are many old schools that do not innovate in terms of classical dance methods, the type of body they require, the costumes... while the new schools, although it is difficult for us, are changing the way of seeing. If it doesn't remain that only ten percent can dance and yet everyone can do it. I have little ones from three years old and they are the ones who listen to you the most, and groups of adults, between 27 and 40 years old, some of whom have never danced.

Paula Salate danzas.jpgPhoto: UNO/Juan Manuel Hernández

Dancing is everyone's business

—How is the experience of dancing with three or four-year-old children?

—All boys dance, with better or worse coordination, but anyone can become a dancer because they are highly stimulated. I work it from the game and listening. The older ones went through other academies in which they did not like the discipline, even though rules must be followed. What I didn't like when I was a student, I don't.

—And in the case of an adult who has never danced?

—The key is self-confidence, which in relation to our body we are losing, and knowing our own body weight. The group is also essential. The women's jazz dance has been dancing for a year and they grew a lot in their confidence.

—What do you say to those who don't dare to compromise their bodies?

—Try it and don't stay with the desire, since the groups are beautiful and nobody judges or sees if it works for you or not. You can't come and look.

—A case?

—A student of rhythms in Hernández, that I love her, 80 years old, retired teacher. She was dying to dance and she spent two months without making up her mind, until she started, she didn't stop anymore and she was happy. How that woman danced, to her rhythm and her time. There is no age!

Paula Salate Danzas 2.jpg

From rubble and weeds to El Nido

—How did you come up with the idea of ​​your own space?

—I taught dance classes in Hernández and Diamante, where I traveled for four years, I got tired, I had a gap year working in a bar, I started looking for a place and suddenly I found this house, which was rented and was not in good condition, full of rubble and grass, but I visualized the three classrooms. My old people and friends helped me paint, I learned to plaster, weld... and we did it little by little.

—What did you envision as a project?

—I had graduated as a Drawing and Painting teacher, so I thought about that and dance workshops for all ages, and music, because I have many musician friends.

—Why the room names?

—The one for drawing and painting is called Frida, where some adults also come; the music room, Spinetta, in which guitar and ukulele (Nicolás Giacomelli), violin (Pedro Vega) and trumpet (Walter Cardozo) are taught in individual classes, and the dance room, Bob Fosse, where rock and roll is also taught. classic from the 50s and 60s, salsa and bachata. Ever since I got to know Frida (Kahlo)'s life, it had an impact on me and I read about it all the time, and for today's kids it's fashionable. I don't have a reference in music, but I like what Spinetta does and his poetry. And I love Fosse's work and I have it cataloged up there.

—How does the dynamic of crossing the arts work?

—It's not about sitting down to draw at a little table and working with colors, but we are generally on the floor; if the boy wants to get dirty he can do it, he can paint with his hand or with his foot... we use our whole body as a tool, in different activities. With the little ones we also do some drawing and painting activities because they are tools to teach and express. Likewise for adults, to get them out of the structures.

—At what point do you have to stop considering dance playfully to assume it with greater discipline based on a professional career?

—The baby himself will ask you for it, he will want more and it will not be enough for him to come for only two hours. What happens now is that they go to many activities and school, they are overwhelmed throughout the day and do not have time to think about what they really like.

—Do you have space on the networks?

—On Instagram, elnidoespaciodearte, and El Nido – Paraná, on Facebook

“Why do you have a tablet if you can play in the park?”

Professor Salate analyzes how the profuse information and stimulation of various electronic devices influences the process of creativity and expressiveness of children and preadolescents. “I am very against technology in those ages; parents give them the phone so they don't bother ", he emphasized.

—How does the hyperstimulation of the screens operate in the youngest?

—Before they treated us in a glass box and now the information that children have is amazing, even some that they shouldn't know because they are highly contaminated. The way of seeing the world and socializing has changed, and even more so after the pandemic. When we were able to restart the activities, five two-and-a-half-year-old children came, and that's when I realized how much we had lost, because of how important it is to socialize at an early age.

—What did you sense?

—They didn't know what it meant to share, respect each other's time or listen to it because they were alone in the world of their homes, and here they threw tantrums, cried...

—What space do you give to electronic devices in the creative and expressive dynamics?

—I'm very anti-technology. The same boys tell you about the madness and chaos in which the parents live, that they both work, the mother is single... and that they give them the cell phone "so they don't talk or bother." It's all a theme and a period context. It also depends on what they use it for, which needs to be explained and controlled. In eight and nine-year-old boys, you realize the lack of attention from parents. A student, with some problems, told me: "I love coming here because you listen to me, while at home they don't listen to me." There is a group of eight and nine year old boys, and of the five there are, only one is allowed to use the phone and another has a tablet. One of the girls told him: “Why do you have a tablet if you can play in the park or on the sidewalk? Aren't you bored?" Luckily there is another world and other parents (laughs).