How massage therapy has helped St Paul’s Opera

Tricia Ninian interviews Agur Arrien, SPO supporter and driving force behind Clapham’s Pilates Sanctuary

Agur Arrien, founder of Clapham’s Pilates Sanctuary

It’s an indisputable fact that the older the house, the greater the need for maintenance.  It’s the same with the body. 

And that’s why the seeds of this interview were, in fact, sown a few years back when I eventually got around to re-energising the lifeblood for my body that is Pilates. The name ‘Agur’ had become familiar as the go-to Pilates teacher in Clapham but little did I know at that stage how our paths would cross both professionally and through personal passions.

Agur Arrien is founder and co-owner of the hugely popular Pilates Sanctuary (based at Clapham North). She is also a resident of Clapham with her husband, Glen, and her two boys Markel and Connor, who are pupils at Clapham Manor Primary School.  And in the last two years, Agur has also been a personal sponsor of the vibrant performing arts offering in Clapham, in particular for St Paul’s Opera’s summer opera festivals.

This is an amazing gesture from an individual, and I know it begs a question in many minds as to why. Let’s lay out this story and take you through a brief history of Agur’s life.

Agur grew up in Bilbao, northern Spain, and right from the outset her life was immersed in dance. “As a little girl, I would watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films with my mother, and even then I knew I wanted to dance and be part of this art. Since then, it has been my whole identity,” she tells me, with a palpable and excited glint in her eye. She now recognises that, as a teenager, she probably seemed a rather boring girl socially, because she just lived to dance.

The lure of the big city caught hold, and Agur headed to Madrid to study a professional degree in classical dance. But, as afflicts many in the dance world, she hung up her points after foot surgery and secured a more conventional future by taking a law degree. However, the dancing bug could not just be shrugged off so easily. “After the law, I decided to move to London and just have one more go at dancing.”

So, in 1998, as a young rookie in London, Agur landed a job on the shop floor at fashion retailer Mango to pay the rent but, crucially, it enabled her to enrol at the London Contemporary Dance School and attend the professional dance class at 9am before heading to work. 

“This was a good move for me,” recalls Agur.  “It was where I met the acclaimed dancer, Chris Tudor, and after a week of morning classes with him he proposed I go and dance with him at the English Bach Festival (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Bach_Festival) which was an international baroque opera company. From then I enjoyed an amazingly fruitful decade travelling around Europe with the company performing at the most beautiful venues. “We even made the movie ‘Strauss: The Waltz King’ in 2005 – all such magical years,” reminisces Agur.

Around that time, dancing and travelling back in Spain, Agur dislocated her shoulder during a show. Back in London a Pilates teacher friend convinced her to try Pilates to aid the recovery from her injury. “To be honest, I was more than a bit sceptical about this, but I was converted after the first session! I couldn’t believe the results and within a nanosecond I was looking into becoming a teacher myself to offer this miracle-cure to others,” adds Agur. Then, her future in Pilates snowballed and she soon found herself taking premises in her ’hood – Clapham – and Pilates Sanctuary was launched.

“I’ve been so fortunate to have this business in Clapham where there is such a great community,” explains Agur. “My clients have become my friends, and so too have those clients become friends with each other – they really need very little encouragement, and, let’s face it, we all meet each other so regularly on the streets of this urban village, this friendly community is inevitable.”

So what happened to the life of dance in the face of this new passion, Pilates? “Well, of course, it never left me,” Agur admits, with a cheeky chuckle. “It’s such a thrilling art form and it’s almost impossible to give it up. I’m incredibly fortunate to still have opportunities to dance at a level that satisfies my artistic needs and ambitions, but it’s hard, hard, work and demanding both physically and emotionally. And, of course, there are the demands it imposes on my family and my business. But it’s so worth it, and so I will continue to dance.”

In recent years, being at the top of her game, Agur has been dancing at Glyndebourne, notably in David McVicar productions of Carmen, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Giulio Cesare.  “I still get that teenager’s tingling feeling being on stage wearing beautiful costumes, wigs and makeup, being fully immersed in telling the story of the opera through dance,” she explains. “And I’ve met the most amazing people through this business. I so enjoyed meeting and working with two beautiful ladies in Giulio Cesare – Joélle Harvey who sang Cleopatra and the amazing Dame Sarah Connolly in the title role. “Such ambassadors for their art with such amazing work ethic,” according to Agur.

Now you see the connection with opera? She is passionate about opera, both performing in, and watching. But why support St Paul’s Opera?

“I had just returned from a Giulio Cesare rehearsal and went straight to SPO’s Così fan Tutte’” Agur tells me. “I found it so uplifting and a real contrast to the grand opera house experience. It was a production of tip-top talented singers with a strong sense of real-life story telling – the quality and professionalism was palpable. What struck me was that, even a small company with limited resources could stage such a quality production and punch well above their weight. At that moment, I knew I wanted to support this amazing organisation, right in the heart of the Clapham community. I strongly believe this is an art form that the people want and need, certainly in our neighbourhood.”

As Agur sought to develop her skills base as a teacher of personal wellbeing, complementing her hugely respected gift as a Pilates teacher by studying clinical massage therapy, she offered massage treatment to clients in exchange for a donation. And this was subsequently gifted to St Paul’s Opera to support its summer opera productions.  The donations began during the production of Le Nozze di Figaro in 2019, and commenced again early this year for the production of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, planned for the 2020 summer festival from St Paul’s Opera.

Sadly, COVID 19 has disrupted all our lives, and brought daily life and future plans to an abrupt and crashing halt. Albert Herring is postponed until there is some certainty about how to bring opera to the audience and to the performers in a safe, and let’s face it, economically viable environment.  For Agur’s dancing future, there is also some serious doubt over the planned Royal Opera House’s production of Handel’s Ariodante in November this year, in which she is due to dance.

The challenges are real, and no more so than for a business such as Agur’s Pilates Sanctuary, where personal contact is at the heart of the operation.  “As I see it,” Agur tells me, “I have to weigh up whether I view this as a danger or an opportunity.  There are days when I’d like to stay in bed and give in to the ‘danger’, but that’s not me, and it’s certainly not an option ongoing. So I get up, and load the Zoom class, and see all my amazing clients getting out their exercise mats in their homes and keep going just like I do, and I know there’s a way out of this. And then I weigh up all that is going on, and the focus is firmly back in the Opportunity camp. I must pay tribute to the warmth, support and kindness of all our clients during this time. I will never forget this, and it makes me proud to be part of this community in Clapham.

“Lockdown has challenged us all, even if we have been so fortunate as to have (so far) escaped the virus itself. Mentally, it’s a struggle for us all, but in that struggle, there is time and the space to look at what we have and, for me and my family, we have so enjoyed being in our safe bubble, learning (literally) together and having family fun in the sun.  The ultimate ‘staycation’.  And I have learned that you can always rewrite yourself and that even if the journey is hard, it will be fine in the end.  We are more adaptable than we think. I realised it’s not only OK, but also important to stop, look around, breathe more, to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of the flowers, the pure air, our families, a trip for ice cream, or a walk with the boys. Pilates and dance are what I do, but I know that it is family, and the community, and the connection with people that are important in their every form.”

While COVID restrictions remain, both SPO and Pilates Sanctuary have an on-line presence with fortnightly virtual concerts by SPO singers and instrumentalists until 17th July, and on-going ‘Zoom’ Pilates classes respectively.

To hear more about Agur Arrien and her Pilates teaching, please contact her at agur@pilatessanctuary.co.uk

Quick questions

Heels or pumps? Heels – no question!!!

Paella or pie? Paella – true to my roots

Rioja or rosé? Champagne, of course, darling!

Chef or diner? Chef – lockdown has shown me a new dimension. Many will be shocked. Glen is!

Handel or Hendrix? Handel, although the boys would probably prefer Hendrix

Squats or Saut de Basque? These days, squats

Diva or Prima ballerina? Diva ballerina!