Blog del Instituto Cervantes de Londres

The new series of White-White Dialogues will feature an exceptional guest, the dancer and English National Ballet director, Tamara Rojo, next Tuesday, October 29 at 7:00 pm, in a conversation with director of Instituto Cervantes in London, Ignacio Peyró.

The prestigious dancer will review her incredible artistic career and talk about the world of dance, her sacrifices and her successes, and the career of a Spanish woman who has triumphed in Britain, in an event that will be held in Spanish language.

The White-White Dialogues bring great characters related to Spanish culture as well as Anglo-Spanish relations between to the British public. In an informal and relaxed environment, Rojo, opens this new format with an in-depth conversation with the public as though they were her close confidants.

Peyró highlights the relevance of these dialogues to deepen the ties that unite both countries, in a cycle that in the coming months will also feature the presence of writer and 2016 Miguel de Cervantes Literature Prize, Eduardo Mendoza, chef Jose Pizarro and journalist, writer and businessman Juan Luis Cebrián, among others.

“Above all, we want to offer to our Spanish students, access to relevant personalities with great experience, which, in this environment of confidence, can bring them closer to culture and language,” says Peyró.

Box office records

Rojo was named artistic director of the English National Ballet in 2012. She combines this role with her career as a dancer, acting as the company’s principal director. Six months after joining the English National Ballet, Rojo was promoted to director and went on to dance all the main roles of the company. Her performances as Clara in The Nutcracker broke all box office records at the London Coliseum and The Times newspaper named her the «Dance Revelation of the Year.»

Rojo joined the Royal Ballet as director at the invitation of Sir Anthony Dowell shortly after her acclaimed debut as a guest artist in Giselle, by Sir Peter Wright, and danced there for 12 years. Since then, Rojo has been recognized repeatedly for her artistic excellence

The awards she has received include: the Laurence Olivier 2010 Award for Best New Dance Production; the three highest honors in Spain, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Gold Medal of Fine Arts and the Number Entrust of Isabel la Católica. In 2016, Rojo also received the badge that accredits her as Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to dance.

An homage to Blanco-White

The name of the cycle is a tribute to José María Blanco-White, (Sevilla, 1775 – Liverpool, 1841); writer, theologian, journalist, literary critic, secularised Catholic priest and one of the three great Spanish heterodox converts to nineteenth-century Protestantism, along with Luis de Usoz y Río and Juan Calderón.

In the past, the cycles reminded the Spanish exiles in the United Kingdom, but they also talked about British travelers on the peninsula or about little known episodes of naval history.

Sevillian Blanco-White was characterized by his progressive ideas, by his critical posture towards slavery and social inequality and by his gradual support for the independence of the colonies of Spain in America. More than a century after his death, the writer Juan Goytisolo, Cervantes Prize 2014, once again gave Blanco White a voice by writing extensively about his life and work.