Lorena Nogal: "I had a Porsche, but I didn't know how to drive it."

BarcelonaIf anything has changed your life National Dance Award 2024 The key to success for dancer and choreographer Lorena Nogal (Barcelona, ​​1984) is that she has "learned to say no." "I've had opportunities and job offers that were very interesting, but I couldn't fit them into the schedule I'd already set up last year because I would have been left without a life. There's something about it that grabs you and you like it, but at the same time it's somewhat enslaving," she says. And despite the hustle and bustle, she never stops.

Nogal arrives serene and ready for conversation, but the stress must be internal: in the mornings she rehearses with La Veronal the show they'll premiere at the Venice Film Festival and that will open the season at the National Theatre, a version of Death and Spring by Mercè Rodoreda; and in the afternoon he rehearses the solo that he will take to the Museu Picasso as part of the Grec Festival, PICASA, on July 6 and 7. This is allowing him to spend more time at home than usual. "I haven't done that for a long time. Sleeping in my own bed is priceless! It's scary to say it; maybe I'm at home for six or seven months, but it's also the life we love: doing big productions and going abroad," he says. In the last two months, he's been traveling to Mallorca, Korea, Valladolid, Denmark, Germany, and Cyprus, focusing on two productions in Barcelona.

A zero for admission to the Institut del Teatre

Lorena Nogal's career has a certain epic quality. Her mother enrolled her in the neighborhood school so she could channel her energy through dancing. She had talent, and at 12 years old, she took the intermediate level exams at the Institut del Teatre. It's legendary to remember that she got a zero. "A zero on average, that's pretty strong," she explains, laughing. Who would have thought that at 40 she'd receive the National Award? In the second round, she passed. "I can understand what happened. My brain moves very fast, sometimes I can't catch up, and my body gets uncoordinated. I think that's why my movement emerged: I'm always off-kilter," she says. In fact, she repeated a couple of years. "It was a question of maturity. Physically, I was very virtuous, but I was very introverted. I had a Porsche, but I didn't know how to drive it. I preferred to stay one more year, and it went very well; I met my friends and my group," she recalls.

Shortly after, Lorena Nogal met Marcos Morau, choreographer of La Veronal. He won first prize at the Salt choreography competition, and she won second. The company, founded in 2005, had barely taken its first steps, and Nogal joined in 2008. "Now he sees La Veronal as a monster, but we've been developing it very slowly; it's home, we're family, and we've been for many years," she says. Together, they've refined a very singular, unique, Picasso-like language. "I think there's something in me that's very instinctive, that natural way of breaking the verticality or organicity of the body. And there's been growth because there's been analysis. When Marcos appeared, based on observation and his personal taste, we began to discover how interesting it is to be able to distort a body. They're natural to me," she says, explaining her particular way of moving her body. Anyone who has seen Lorena Nogal dance remembers her.

Overflowing creativity

Over the years, she has worked as a choreographer as Morau's assistant on the choreographer's external productions, but now she wants to dedicate more time to her own creations, both through the Hotel collective and independently. "I don't know if I'll always return home," she says. She has her first major format pending, but she knows that 2026 will be the time for her tour. Death and Spring, so maybe she'll pass it in 2027. "From La Veronal, I take the ambition to think big, the nonconformity of not only working with the body but also having all the artistic layers on the same level and interconnected. The other thing is always thinking, 'What can I contribute that's new?' Everything changes, and everything is a possibility." PICASA She will put images to the thoughts of creators before they end up embodied in a work, she wants to show the internal dialogue through which ideas are incubated. Constant travel, the lack of permanent contracts, the dependence on injuries and sick leave, Nogal cannot uphold the discourse of the precariousness of the dance world because she hasn't experienced it. And now, however, I'm in a good place, I have a healthy body, I'm intellectually connected and I don't have that anxiety, it's a very beautiful moment," she celebrates. If she has any purpose, it's to live more. "My schedule is so tight and there's so little room for improvisation that I feel bad about not having time to dedicate to other things; for me, this is a priority," she affirms.