Patricia Cano: who is the former prima ballerina who celebrates ruby ​​weddings with the Municipal Ballet?

She was 16 years old when she flew alone to Paris. It was her first plane trip out of the country. She understood some English and the basics of French she assimilated thanks to a cassette learning method. Finishing school in Lima, Patricia Cano competed at the III Trujillo International Ballet Festival, whose jury was chaired by Márika Besobrasova, then director of the Princess Grace Ballet of Monaco. By winning the Grand Prix, Patricia also won a scholarship to study for a year at the academy founded by the former movie star whose tragic death, in 1982, almost coincided with the arrival of the Peruvian ballerina in the small principality. “All the things that have happened to me have been guided by a supreme being, and I say it was God, because thanks to him I have been able to have scholarships in different places”, says the teacher, whose great love for dancing was always her best letter of introduction.

Sharing this first big step in her career is associated with a shared anniversary: ​​the 40th anniversary of the Municipal Ballet of Lima (BML), a company of which she was a founding dancer and with which she also celebrates her ruby ​​wedding anniversary. “Just when I came back from the fellowship in Monaco, the BML was founded. It was born as a dream of Lucy Telge and all of us, who were her students”. The memories of him continue: it was on August 24, 1983 when the company made its first official presentation in the Hall of Mirrors of the Municipal Palace of Lima. There were only five girls and five boys who participated in that performance that included excerpts from the ballets “Raymonda”, “Don Quixote”, Grand Pas de Quatre and other duets that they performed on a tabladillo set up for the occasion.

“Thus, little by little, we were building the foundations of the Municipal Ballet”, admits Patricia, the only one of the five founding dancers who remains linked to the company created by Lucy Telge, a teacher of teachers, who also played a fundamental role at the beginning of her outstanding career.

step by step

Patricia Cano has been dancing since she was 5 years old. She hastened, the girl, she raised her hand when at school they asked who she liked to dance. Even having a dancing uncle (Héctor Cano), her mother did not imagine that that introverted girl would lean towards that art, but she was like that. She lived in Rímac and took classes at the Escuela Nacional Superior de Ballet (ENSB), which was in Carabaya; She studied there until she was 14 years old, under the supervision of Olga Shimasaki and Manuel Stagnaro, among others. “I met Lucy Telge the day my teacher, Jorge Rodríguez, asked us to go with him to a test for teachers. At his academy I saw the girls dance so differently that I told my mom that I wanted to study there. Lucy gave me a test, she told me that she was good and when my mom asked her how much my classes would cost, she told her nothing. She gave me a scholarship!”.

This opportunity was followed by a fellowship in Monaco, then one in Cuba and another in New York. His teachers were the Cuban Laura Alonso (daughter of the mythical Alicia Alonso) and the American David Howard, as well as the Argentine Mario Galizzi and the Russian Mikhail Koukharev., a graduate of the Bolshoi Theater, who spent 27 years at the BML. And although from the beginning of her a good star guided her steps, Patricia also lived through difficult moments together with the cast of the BML: from studying in times of terrorism (“Sometimes it was dark and we had to dance by candlelight, or I would sleep over at Lucy’s house because the buses stopped coming.”, he remembers) until he had an accident in full performance of “El corsair”. It was in 2006 that she had that knee injury: they operated on her, they put two nails in her and she was three months without walking; she did therapy and her recovery was very painful. After eight months she returned to the stage playing Snow White’s stepmother, and she continued dancing for eight more years.

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From dancer to teacher

10 years ago Patricia Cano hung up her prima ballerina shoes starring in “Don Quixote”: her last performance as Kitri, the young woman who becomes Dulcinea in the second act, when the knight-errant dreams of his beloved, was highly applauded. “I wanted to say goodbye with a happy play, to enjoy this last performance. I have danced almost all the ballets, and what has happened to me has been beautiful. It was time to give way to a new generation and transmit my experience to them. I was already a teacher at the ENSB, I already had my academy [Estudanza]. But yes, leaving this career costs”, says the brand new graduate in classical ballet, who eventually appears in works that require her: just a year ago she played Berther, the mother of the protagonist in the ballet “Giselle”.

“I always remember a phrase by Alicia Alonso: I no longer dance on stage, but when I teach my class I feel like I’m dancing”, says the teacher who every day instills in her disciples the passion for ballet. “The advice I give my students is that they train here but as they grow they should go out and see other horizons. I also tell them that thinking about technique is fine, but you must never lose your style, body expression or projection towards the public. I have never let the technique override the feeling, because we are going to tell a story, and it is not just turns, jumps and positions; the public comes to see a play, a plot told with dance”.

They celebrate with “La bayadere”

“La bayadere” is a story of love and betrayal starring Nikiya, a temple dancer who falls in love with the warrior Solor. He reciprocates her love, but is engaged to Gamzatti, the Rajah’s daughter. Patricia Cano once played Nikiya in this work that dates from 1877 and was composed by Sergei Judekov and Marius Petipa. Today it is she who directs the dancers who will assume the main roles in the functions with which the BML will celebrate its 40th anniversary. They will exchange the role of the great Indian dancer Luciana Cárdenas, Solange Villacorta and Oriana Plaza; Rodrigo Blanco and Frederick Ayllón will be Solor; and Mónica Balbuena, Mara Casafranca and Viviana Gutiérrez will be Gamzatti.

“La bayadera” will be presented from March 31 to April 16 at the Teatro Segura (Jr. Huancavelica 261, Lima). Tickets are on sale at Teleticket.