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                  DALY'S FASHION
    LEO DAN RODRIGUEZ CASAS
 Rebecca Ponte met Leo Dan Rodriguez Casas, a great figure of  contemporary dance, living in spain, for an interview. He is at he  moment First Dancer of the Istmos work within the Experimenta  Danza company. Portrait of an extraordinary character.

 He claims that he didn't discovered dance, but that some others  did it for him and then he fell in love with it and although being  just a child, he made of it the aim and the passion of his life.

 When and how started this love story? When I was ten years  old, at school, a school which made me stay far away from my  family and friends, but nether the less made me feel different  and lucky to live these moments. Dancing gave me self  confidence, a goal and a future. It gave me objectives, means  and a great direction to my life. Later, when I was a teenager I  mixed up with artists from other realms, street art students,  collaborating on various events with them, such as video  performances, dancing theatre, settings and movies which  improved my stage interpretation and made me learn more about  different dancing technics and life. The world of Dance provided  me with exceptional encounters and friendships.

 What made you move to Spain? In Cuba, I had been  collaborating for a while with plastician artists and musicians  such as X Alphonso from Habana blues and others maintaining a  loose contact with Spain at a professional level, plus the fantasy  I already had about this country, all of this triggered my curiosity  and my desire to try to do something there. After Dancing in  Switzerland and in France, I've decided to settle to Madrid for a  while in the year 2003.

 How did you feel yourself as an artist, dealing with maybe a  different way to see and to perform dancing? Very bad at the  beginning. Before coming I had a very professional and serious  idea of Dancing probably shaped by my previous european dance  experience. I was surprised and a bit upset to see that the  general level was not that high. Later I understood this as  something much more positive. It was actually an opened door  to great opportunities.

 What do you retain from dancing in Cuba? What do you  retain  from dancing in Spain? In Cuba, dancing is in the street  and in  each moment of everyone's life. It's an art loved by the  people.  Everybody understands, respects, loves it and accepts  what it  can provide with. I withdraw this love and understanding  from  this cuban people art. From spain I retain a world of  opportunities for a professional dancer, the respect and the  quality in which cuban dancers are welcomed. It would be great  to gather these different options just to make one.

 Your unforgettable moment as a dancer?Dancing, on stage  with my beloved master Ladislao Navarro. The emotion was so  strong that I had to keep my tears. How do you see your life  in  the future? Or how would you see you in your artistic  maturity?  In a house, at the countryside with my cows and  animals,  leading a small dance school-academy, transmitting to  pupils  the same love and respect in dancing, I was granted as a  child,  working on choreographies with the more talented ones so  that  to bring my contribution in the transmission of dance  culture.  We, who admire him not only for his dancing qualities  but also for  the human ones and his humility, can do nothing  more than  wishing him a great success with Istmos, being sure  that it will  be like every project Leo Dan Rodriguez Casas leads,  with the  very fine essence of his cuban art.                                                                                  Rebecca Ponte.