Marina Santo wants to help you heal, through physical movement and specifically with dance. In her early years, training as a dancer, Marina was taught to compete and to compare. The limiting ideas of what modern dance should be didn’t leave her much room to feel authenticity within her life as a dancer.
Now, after a long career of working with various communities throughout Spain (and otherwise), Marina has the space, means and financial support to direct her own project Más Allá de la Piel. The project which translates to ‘Beyond the Skin’ in English, is a tribute to racialized people who generally lack representation in Madrid, Spain.
Marina has devoted her time, artistic passion and love of education to teaching dance in working class neighborhoods to those who are not dancers by trade. When she first started, she noticed that the older women in her classes had not only spent their lives feeling repressed in their bodies but had also put much of their energy towards mere survival and nothing more. Their dreams for anything including having an art career were diminished by oppressive conditioning. “If you can’t have pleasure with your own body, how are you going to dream? How are you going to follow your passion? Which passion? To pay the bills?” Marina asks.
The world has evolved and perhaps things have gotten better with time. But Marina understands successfully pursuing a career in art is still no easy feat. Having a successful career in the arts is a privileged position that requires major financial support. It isn’t a coincidence that contemporary dance is very white, Marina reflects. If we are to have a conversation about representation and access in the art world, then we also have to talk about class structures as well.
While Marina is the creator of Más Allá de la Piel and had the tough task of choosing four individuals for the project’s final presentation, she still sees herself as merely a facilitator of the magic that happens within the rehearsal room. She even hesitates to name the participants, “Movers, dancers, I don’t know…” she says.
One thing is for certain. This project is an exciting moment in Marina’s life as an artist. Never before has she had this kind of project support available to her, with the financial backing to be able to pay the project’s participants as well. The opportunity to create more representation for racialized communities of Madrid is an important one. Marina leans into it with eagerness and focus.
In one corner of the rehearsal room for Más Allá de la Piel there is a small table with a few important items: Marina’s phone connected to the speaker for playing the music that guides the group, a lit candle carefully placed on a flower patterned fabric that has been folded into a neat square in the center of the table. The fabric also holds a pink lighter and a lone stick of palo santo incense. These items are simple and intentional; exuding care into the room. A care you can feel when you first meet Marina; she smiles easily, her energy is lightweight but steady. She facilitates the group within the rehearsal room but she does not bombard the participants with a rigid end goal. She allows them to search, look, breathe, freely wander and play, guided by the safe protection of her voice in the background. “Buen viaje!”, she says as she starts a new song on her playlist. “Have a good trip”. She wants to meet everyone in the room where they are, to be in conversation and facilitate a mutual meeting point that feels not like an end but a fluid opening.
Marina continues to have performances of Más Allá de la Piel throughout Madrid. Follow her Instagram page @soymarinasanto for updates.
Earlier this year I sat down with Marina to discuss her work. You can view the conversation here.
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