I first studied when I was about eight or nine [in Madrid]. I didn’t care so much for dance, actually. I was too young to appreciate it. It was after the first three years that I started to get passionate about it.
Alejandro Cerrudo, 32, performs with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and became its first resident choreographer in 2009. His most recent work was One Thousand Pieces, an evening-length dance—HSDC’s first—as mystical as its source: Chagall’s America Windows at the Art Institute of Chicago.—Laura Molzahn
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I don’t consider myself a great dancer, I really don’t. I have fun when I can express something, theatrically speaking. I like partnering maybe more than I like dancing alone. You have to speak with your partner without words, and that’s very unique and very beautiful. It can be difficult. It’s like relationships—you can be compatible or not. Hopefully you get to a point where that doesn’t matter anymore. So even if I didn’t like the way you work or you didn’t fit to me so well, we understand and enjoy each other.
It might sound overpretentious, but I value my taste first. I cannot live or work trying to please everybody. I need to have a certain level of happiness with what I’m doing to expect others to like it. Any type of art, I like to go, “Oh! Something I did not expect.” I mean, of course it has to be good!
Dave Cerda, the performer →
