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Maria del Pilar Rioja del Olmo was born in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico, on September 13, 1932. Daughter of Spanish, and being the biggest of four brothers, Pilar realizes her fundamental studies in Torreon. She dances in Torreon with her sister Milagros, who with only six years of age won an award for dancing “la jota” accompanied by her father. |
| “ My father was a farmer and my mother housewife. He liked the bullfighting, they called him Belmonte because he was a huge fan of the Belmonte toreador. He liked dancing very much and he sang very well the “jotas”. My mother sweetly danced the “jotas” and my father danced them very hard. |
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“ I started dancing in Torreon, in the “Romerías”. I danced with my father’s countrymen. I was dancing very well the Basque, the Castilian and the Aragonese “jota”. I saw few movies and I took some steps from them. I created my own dances, from very small I like dancing. I mounted my own choreographies, I have always liked executing that thing about what I have invented earlier in games, in dreams, or in the seriousness and the loneliness of myself ”. In 1950 Pilar moves to the Mexico City where she initiates her learning with the Teacher Óscar Tarriba, who advises her to devote professionally to the dance. Between 1950 and 1953, Pilar travels to Spain and perfects her flamenco with Juan Sánchez “El Estampío”. She penetrates in the secrets of the “Escuela Bolera” with Ángel Pericet and initiates in the Folkloric School with Elvira Real (1951 - 1953), the first ballerina of the Pilar López ballet. |
In 1960’s, Pilar perfects her capacities with José Domingo Samperio, and penetrates into the varied types of Spanish and Italian baroque music, shaping it, dominating it, accompanying it with “castañuelas” on concert. In 1968 she studies with Regla Ortega in Spain, and the same year, Pilar marries to the Spanish poet Luis Rius, continuing her presentations in the most famous theaters of Spain, where she is internationally recognized. |
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The enormous, profound and long trajectory of Pilar Rioja goes from 1938 until the date, appearing successfully, and being rewarded by different reknowledges, at the whole interior of the Mexican Republic, as well as many countries of diverse continents, such as Spain, Vienna, Bulgaria, the United States, Canada, the different republics of the ex-Soviet Union, Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, only for quoting a few. Pilar has been a sculptors' muse, like David Narudnisky, José Luis Padilla and Joaquín Arias, painters like Hector Javier, Antonio Peyri and Alfaro Siqueiros, as well as tremendous poets like Luis Rius, Juan Duch and Alfonso Simone. Her incredible trajectory not only includes presentations, but also includes the teaching at a series of courses to ballet dancers and schools, conferences, as well as the creation of magnificent choreographies, like “El Retablo del Mirlo Blanco”, “Mística y Erótica del Barroco”, between others. |
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“ What more it teaches you is the life, the life itself. There is a knowledge that is given to you by the ripeness and the years. You have to suffer sad situations and to pass for happy things, learn to canalize them to what you do. Instead of starting crying in a corner, better you lead all these feelings to the dance ”. |
