Letter from the Director

The newspaper Aula Magna interviews Marisa Zafra, director of ESAEM.

“It’s a mistake to think that artists don’t need a cultural level”

Andalucía.- The director of the Higher School of Performing Arts talks about her work, her students and the profession of being an artist. ESAEM, founded in 2005 in Malaga, Spain, is a pioneer School in Europe in which the crisis is not noticed:  it manages a recruitment rate of 90% of its students, most of them in renowned musicals inside and outside  Spain.

Q. How did Marisa Zafra get into the world of performing arts?

R. I have a degree in Educational Studies, specialized in Spanish Language and Literature; although I also have medical studies. But curiously my professional  beginnings were within the audiovisual field  collaborating in a TV program which dealt with issues of health education.

From then on I was hired to coordinate the ‘Escuela de Radio  and TV’, I was also part  of the board of directors of the ‘Escuela Superior de Comunicación’ and later I opened together with the actor Salvador Guerrero the ‘Granada Higher School of Interpretation’.

Q. At what moment did you consider creating ESAEM?

R. It was during this last period. I considered the shortcomings of Spanish actors who were only trained in dramatic arts subjects, in comparison to American actors who were experts in Performing Arts.

Q. What distinguishes ESAEM from other schools in the same field?

R.   It is a private initiative that was born with the purpose of anticipating a “multidisciplinary” artistic training.

We opened the School in January 2005, after an admission casting of more than 250 applicants from all over Spain. We were one of the first School in Europe to combine the three disciplines of the Performing Arts: interpretation, dance and singing, a pioneering project to create the ‘complete artist’.

Q. What is the philosophy of your School? What do you base your daily work on?

R.   Discipline, hard work and perseverance are our working weapons and through them we try to instill in our students a different way of understanding life and living it.

For us, fitness is not so important, it is doubtful that it is something that will help us enormously, but what really matters is the attitude to life and the challenges that it entails. A student who wants to be in ESAEM must  work hard for their place and we do not really care if it takes longer to assimilate the concepts or choreographies (the teachers are absolutely devoted to that). What we care about is their personal effort, the desire to achieve the goals that have been set.

They must show us that they really want to achieve their dream. Since they start the school they change their habits of life: good food, lots of water intake, reading… In short, we convey that their quality of life and the approach they give to it must be what they must work the most if they want to dedicate themselves to this profession.

Q. What is the average profile of a student in your School?

R. About 800 students will be studying in ESAEM this year. But the most important thing is that more than 80 are from cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, Salamanca, Bilbao, La Coruña, Mallorca, Badajoz or the Canary Islands. Although we also have students from cities like Paris, London and even the US.

Q. When a boy or girl tells their parents that they want to dedicate themselves to the profession of the performing arts, the decision is usually not well received, as it is often thought that there are no job opportunities in this field.

R. Yes, this usually happens. Parents always prefer their children to choose professions such as lawyers, doctors, journalists… But the fact that they want to dedicate themselves to the ‘world of art’, as it is described, is not very well received by parents.

Indeed, when parents come to enroll them, they do so as a reward for their children studying something else or getting good grades in the high school or elementary school if they are younger. The mistake is thinking that the profession of an artist  does not require a high level but in fact they are 100% wrong. Actors must have a very high cultural level (language, diction, literature, politics, geography, social protocol) as well as perfect level of English.

Q. The crisis has also affected the performing arts sector. How does this affect the School?

R. Thanks God, this year our school has covered all its places. In Preschool and Elementary Degree we no longer have places. And as for the Degree in Performing Arts we have more and more students enrolled and especially from cities far away from Malaga, which says a lot about the quality of our school.

At this moment, which is so hard financially talking and which so many families are going through, parents do their best to get their children qualified. It’s the only way to get a job and perhaps the force that can take the country forward: training.

Q. Does ESAEM really offer job opportunities to its students? What is the percentage of recruitment?

R. ESAEM  has finished the first three promotions with more than 90% of  recruitment. Having students working for both our own dance company and in prestigious musicals such as ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘High School Musical’,The Lion King’, ‘Hoy no me puedo levantar’, ‘Los 40 Principales’ and well-known TV series and programs. 

In addition to hiring them for important shows in Madrid or Barcelona, they are also being hired as teachers, which is being one of the most important demads for our graduates. In short, we think that the training that ESAEM graduates have is so complete that when they take part in a casting, they are recruited without hesitation!

Q. Speaking of teaching, what are the qualities of the school teachers?

R.   ESAEM began its academic journey with a tough selection of a team of teachers who, in addition to an outstanding curriculum in the discipline for which they competed, were also asked to have a long professional artistic career.

For ESAEM it is essential to have professionals who are active, this increases the added value in the fact that they are in full capacity to transmit their students the demands and requirements for their professional future.

In addition to the students’ motivation having teachers who are choreographers of Carlos Baute, David Bisbal, Paulina Rubio, Alejandro Sanz among others; or watch your teachers on daily TV shows, which even prepare and rehearse in class the choreography or sequences you’ll then see on the screen.

Q. According to what you tell us, musicals are the favourite professional path of your students. Why do you think this is happening?

R. ESAEM  anticipated what has been the demand for professionals trained in Performing Arts. I spent the first two years convincing students who enrolled about the need for multidisciplinary training. This was the only way they could always get a job. When artists were required for the musicals that began to be seen in Madrid, it was my students they hired.

This was very important in order to make the hard academic program done at ESAEM have sense. For me it has been very emotional to go to ‘Mamma Mia’ or any other musical  and see my students on stage and also with important roles.

Q. Which of the courses you offer is the most successful one, I mean, which one brings the largest number of students together?

R. The most sought-after courses are the Baccalaureate of Performing Arts, the Higher Degree in  Dramatic Arts and Performing Arts and the Conservatory of Dance. Our Summer Camp has also an excellent reception among young people who come from other countries and every corner of our geography.

Q. This year you have offered some very innovative studies: Model-acting. What does it exactly consist of?

R. The complete formation of an artist is becoming more and more important. There was a time when casting directors asked me for actors or actresses with a very good image and who could also dance and sing.

From there came the ‘Model-acting’, a specialty within the Dance and Performing Arts Degree  in which all students who are over 1.70 tall are also prepared in subjects such as Technical Catwalk, Choreographic Catwalk, Photographic Pose, Protocol and Social Etiquette. It is a specific ESAEM degree and it is increasingly getting more and more demand. Our first promotion has graduated with very good professional results.

Q. What activities do you usually do outside the school? Do you collaborate with any private company or institution?

R. We have held many events since we arrived in Malaga. We performed The first ‘Dance Marketing’ in Malaga for the firm ‘Paco Rabanne: One Million’ with which the managers from Paris were delighted. For ‘Guerlain’ (with which we even toured Barcelona, Madrid and Andorra) ‘Kenzo’…

In addition to collaborating with the city of Malaga for everything it has needed: the opening of the Automobile Museum, advertising campaigns, events for the UNICAJA team, advertising campaign for shopping centres such as ‘Miramar’ de Fuengirola, ‘Alcampo’ Seville. in Puerto Banus and Marbella… As well as in other cities in Spain from which we have been asked to collaborate.

We also have our private TV channel “ESAEM TV” that fosters an important training platform for our students. ESAEM TV has covered events such as the ‘Punto Radio Awards’ with live interviews with such outstanding professionals as Luis del Olmo and Jaime Cantizano, among many others.

P. ESAEM organizes an awards ceremony for many personalities at the end of each school year. Do you remember any anecdotes or curious facts about any of the winners?

R.   The ESAEM Performing Arts Awards are becoming increasingly important and more and more artists and personalities from the world of culture are attending our event.

The most emotional and important moment we have had in the last two editions was the visit and support offered by our Mayor Mr. Francisco de la Torre, for the very nice words he had about THE ESAEM educational project and how the school was positioning Malaga as a reference city in the Culture of the Performing Arts.

His presence in the Aula Magna of our school was also very important, I remember the excitement and motivation in our students when they saw him  arriving backstage. The Mayor surprised us again in this last edition when he once again attended the Red Carpet of our ESAEM Awards.

Q. What are the school future projects?

R.   We receive calls from parents from Galicia or Madrid asking if we can also offer the Baccalaurate of Performing Arts to their children.

ESAEM’s path is going that way, our next step forward will be to offer a ‘Campus of  “Dance and Performing Arts’ with boarding students who can study the Baccalaureate at ESAEM  and the Performing Arts Degree as well. In short, a ‘High Performance’ School in which we can work with students from the age of 16 and in four years time be able to export high-level professionals. For ESAEM the age at which we take students is really important so it would be great to have them studying the Baccalaureate with us.

Q. In short, what is the secret of the success of your School? What do you think ESAEM brings to a city like Malaga?

R. Malaga anticipated what the essential claim for the hiring of artists in musicals today is. ESAEM has become the school of choice for students from both Spanish cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Santander…) as well as the rest of Europe and the USA.

This is the most important thing: we have managed to place ESAEM in a very prominent place as a school of ‘High Level Training’,  and chosen as the first choice by future professionals.

We have managed to reverse the process: students coming from Madrid or Barcelona to live and study in Malaga. It is no longer exclusive to travel to other cities for a magnificent training.

Q. What can you tell us about the subjects taught at the School? And your facilities?

R.   ESAEM has the best facilities, more than 1500 square metres in classrooms and our own theatre and set where students can perform practices and shows.

Our experience in this type of integral training in Performing Arts allows us to develop a type teaching adapted to the different ages of our students. The objective is to bring our students the subjects which they will face in their future work to the classrooms: musicals, theatrical and on camera performance, singing, ballet, jazz, hip hop, fencing, tap, makeup, costumes, casting techniques…

Q. What is the age range of your students?

R. From the Pre-School Classroom of Initiation  of Dance and Performing Arts (from 4 to 7 years old) to the Degree in Dance and Performing Arts (from 16 years old on). We also have an Elementary Degree of Dance and specialization in Performing Arts (from 8 to 15 years) approved by the Ministry of Education as an Elementary Degree Dance Conservatory.