Sydney Dance Co’s AD used to chose Madonna over flamenco, but nowadays it’s classical that sets his toes tapping.

I grew up in a small town called La Garriga, about 40 kilometres from Barcelona. My father insisted on the whole flamenco thing because he’s from the south of Spain, although he emigrated when he was 15 to look for a job. He was very attached to his roots and to that music. He bought me a guitar and paid for lessons, but in Barcelona it wasn’t cool to be listening to flamenco when you were young – I just wanted to listen to Michael Jackson and Madonna. Then I joined the town choir when I was seven and learned a lot of church music in Latin and in Catalan. Twice a week we rehearsed. I remember vividly loving it. That was the first classical music that really got to me.

There was no dance school in my little town, so to begin with it was just me and a group of kids. I didn’t know it was called choreography – I used to call it “let’s make a dance”! We danced to Michael Jackson, Singing in the Rain, anything....