FEATURE THEATRE INTERVIEW:
Sergio Trujillo's dance card filled
8 DEC/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency

Sergio Trujillo made it home for Christmas — but he couldn’t stay.

Instead, the award-winning choreographer of Jersey Boys, The Addams Family and Memphis (the Tony Award-winning musical whose Toronto Centre for the Arts opening Wednesday brought Trujillo home for an early Christmas reunion with his family) will be jetting off to Argentina next week to audition dancers for a new tango-inspired work. But he’s not complaining.

“Actually, I’m not as busy as I’ve been,” Trujillo says as he catches his breath on a whirlwind tour of Toronto media. There was a time, he explains, when he was working on both Memphis and The Addams Family simultaneously and things got a little intense.

“At that point, I was focused” he recalls, “but that’s as busy as I ever want to be. I only do things now that I can manage.” Apparently, however, he can manage a fair bit, for his dance card is still full, with plenty of new offers arriving on a regular basis. Not that choosing new projects is a problem.

“I have to still listen to my instincts,” Trujillo says. “I have to believe in that inner voice. If it’s something I can service — the material — then I’m definitely involved.” That inner voice has set an interesting course for the 48-year-old Colombian-born, Toronto-raised artist, who remembers launching his dancing career in his late teens. “The core of what I wanted to be was a dancer, but I didn’t think you could make money,” he admits.

So, he worked at his dancing at the same time he was working on a bachelor’s degree in science at the University of Toronto, where he studied to be a chiropractor. Dance ended up not only funding his education, but becoming his career as well — and though that career has taken him around the world, Toronto is still home in his heart. Part of that, of course, is the fact that his family is still here — but Toronto is a city of memories as well.

“When I started to dance — from 19 to 25,” he says with a smile. “That’s when I remember myself in Toronto. I remember this young guy with a hunger and an ambition to dance.” That ambition has continued to grow and, having transitioned from dancer to choreographer, Trujillo is now contemplating directing.

“I’ve been directing and choreographing for the last three years,” he says, “Projects that I’m still working on.” And his confidence is growing. “When I work with the great directors, like Des McAnuff, it just seems unachievable, but then I start working on something like Havana (the Frank-Wildhorn-Nilo Cruz-Jack Murphy musical that will mark his Broadway directorial debut) and it just makes so much sense.”

As for the dancing, which he left behind at the end of a hugely successful run in the Toronto-born Fosse: A Celebration in Song and Dance, he doesn’t miss it, for the plain and simple reason that he’s now calling the tune. “I still dance — and I still dance hard,” he says with conviction.

He smiles. “I just remind myself of where I come from. It’s been a journey that’s been full of hard work and sacrifices.”
But just look where it has brought him — and where it’s likely to take him in the future. And we’re not talking Argentina.