Ana Laguna

“Everything has its time and the time when I had great physical strength is gone; I have to use the possibilities I have now.” For Ana Laguna, born in Zaragoza in 1954, and living in Sweden, expressing herself in movement is as vital and as natural as ever. But “the possibilities that I have now are different compared to those I had when I was young.”

Fortunately, more than daring technical acrobats, Mats Ek needs dancers with a good deal of experience in life, if the psychology in his pieces is to be believable.

No lack of that in his recently premiered “Ställe” (Place), where he paired up Laguna with another veteran celebrity, Mikhail Baryshnikov. At 53 Laguna, Ek’s wife and signature dancer for some thirty years, can provide not only that depth and intensity necessary to explore all nuances of human relations, but also a different narrative potential. “As a female around the age of forty,” she observes, “you first think you are finished as a dancer, then as a woman, since you can no longer have children. But it is necessary to find a way to continue. I think this is important since there is something else in a mature person, a mature dancer. You do not need to do those big jumps ...