The ballad Nothing else matters, created by James Hetfield (Metallica), was the second song I choreographed. Nothing else matters is much more than a classic metal ballad: it is a universal song that has transcended the genre. Proof of this is the many musicians of all styles and instruments that have covered it. In dance, it’s probably the metal song most choreographed by dancers of all styles. Ballads, and especially this one so famous, are more open to be danced using other styles like ballet, contemporary dance or tribal fusion. As ballads are not so aggressive, the dancers find more easily musical points in common with the songs they are accustomed to dancing.
For my own choreography, choosing the piano version of Scott D. Davis had much to do in the intention to incorporate live musicians in presentations. Two examples were my collaboration with Nacho Pérez (guitar) during the Madrid´s Gothic Week 2010 and with Cros Heart (keyboard) in Farah Diva Dance Festival 2011.
Wings of an Angel
The choreography is built on an element (the wings), not a character, but when I created it, the idea of an angel and her purity were present in the choice of the costume and movements. Search a romantic, nostalgic and vintage air was also one of my premises to adapt to the new concept of gothic dance that had just emerged.
The first modern Isis wings were used in the so-called Serpentine Dance, in the late nineteenth century, and attributed to the legendary dancer Loïe Fuller. Even the Lumière brothers immortalized one of these dances represented by Annabelle American in one of his first film recordings. Belly dancers started to use them in the twentieth century to create fantasy dances.
Speaking of scenic arts, it is for my taste the most powerful dance element due to the large increase in the size of the dancer and the reflection of lights on its surface.
From my point of view, modern wings are not linked univocally to belly dance, as they do not constitute one of its core elements (as might be the melaya in the dances of Alexandria), so its use in any other dance style is not outside a cultural context. Inside the rock-metal dance, we can use wings to create choreographies simply based on it or to represent winged characters of the metal scene as angels, demons or the phoenix.
Victorian-inspired costume
The costume I designed for this choreography is Victorian-inspired and remarkably ornate, with white lace pants and a set of seven roses and seven veils with rhinestones acquired in the Montmartre district in Paris. It is complemented by a shrug and a pair of corset-gloves. Bra and jewelery are handmade. In 2011 there were not many alternative dance clothing firms in Spain, so the vast majority of dancers manufactured our own clothes. The situation is now changed and brands like BloodyMaryMirror create, for example, stunning gloves like this:
