A CONVERSATION WITH... MAVICA
We sat down with Spanish artist MAVICA, a musician who centres her work around female empowerment, to talk about her single ‘you could never do that’. Today she’s released her next single, ‘are you back?’
You first fell in love with ballet, so WHEN DID YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH MUSIC?
I always loved singing, especially in the car with my family. My brother and I would act like we were in a music contest, singing songs by Antonio Vega, Police, or David Bowie, making our parents act like the judges. I started with writing lyrics, then a few years later taught myself the guitar to accompany the lyrics.
What does MAVICA mean to you, and how do you think that message comes across through your art?
MAVICA is the most honest manifestation of my emotions moulded and sculpted into music. I think people can sense that and give it their own interpretation, which I really love.
How do you think your hiatus from putting out music influenced your music and relationship with the music industry?
It’s given me space and perspective to really envision how I wanted to present my music and its visual counterpart. As well, it’s given me the strength and self-confidence to move forward with what I really want without paying attention to what people think. I don’t care if people think it’s too pop, too indie or not what the industry expects from me. In the end, I just want to make music I’d listen to and I feel that’s the only way to stay true to myself.
How do you think your hiatus from putting out music influenced your music and relationship with the music industry?
It’s given me space and perspective to really envision how I wanted to present my music and its visual counterpart. As well, it’s given me the strength and self-confidence to move forward with what I really want without paying attention to what people think. I don’t care if people think it’s too pop, too indie or not what the industry expects from me. In the end, I just want to make music I’d listen to and I feel that’s the only way to stay true to myself.
What does this new era hold for MAVICA?
More music, and more live shows! I haven’t released anything in a long time, but I’ve been writing songs every day that I can’t wait to show you all. ‘You could never do that’ is only the beginning. Musically there’s still some resemblance to my older songs, but I wanted it to feel more positive, moving towards something more upbeat and groovy. Especially with my upcoming album, the music I’m putting out this year touches on female empowerment, connecting to our bodies and involves a lot of dancing and movement.
Speaking of your new era, your latest single: ‘you could never do that’. You’ve talked about how it’s a way for you to express yourself through movement. How did those natural movements make their way into the music video and choreography, and what was the creation process like for the song and video overall?
When I was about to move to Madrid post-pandemic, I connected with the contemporary dance community there. That’s how I met Sara, whose workshops at WI Team have helped me reconnect to myself. I instantly felt like I found a missing piece inside of me.
Sara had been teaching her students all my songs. One day, I snuck into a class and we asked everyone how moving to the music made them feel, but no one knew they were listening to my music. It was an amazing experience to hear how someone felt when they listen to my music and how they moved to express those feelings. From then on, I knew I had to incorporate dance and movement in my videos.
I later learned about deconstructed movements from Sara and Freja (the choreographer). It consists of relaxing your body and contracting it, extending your body through a movement and coming back to its original position. I started moving to the song in my room and envisioning having more dancers doing these moves together because I knew the power these movements and that image could hold.
‘you could never do that’ is incredibly cathartic and vulnerable, so this next question is in two parts. Do you mind sharing more about what moments/thoughts influenced the song? And how do you balance being so open and heartfelt in your music and taking care of yourself?
I wrote the song after talking with my friend about how the music industry tends to sexualize female bodies. I was overwhelmed by the industry’s influence on female projects and started thinking about how I could speak up about this.
Making the video was a very eye-opening experience that gave a new dimension to the song. I wanted to keep it raw and have our bodies be the main characters, so there was no stylist or MUA. I ended up wondering if I was contradicting myself by showing female bodies, but then I realised that the problem isn’t what I show. The problem is how some people look at them in a certain way and how society has made us feel that they’re sexual.
Being so open and heartfelt is part of taking care of myself. I feel like the more I open myself through music, the better I get at communicating in my personal life. That’s the reason I started writing in the first place as some kind of therapy. I’m still far from being as open and direct as I want to be.
What does celebrating your body mean to you?
It means being gentle and kind to myself. Accepting and celebrating who I am and what I look like, what kind of art I want to make. I’ve really only come to terms with this recently. Dancing has really helped me with that, so I’m lucky that I grew up in a beautiful town and with an amazing family that gave me the opportunity to dance and express myself since I was young.
How did it feel writing it, reliving that trauma? Only if you feel comfortable sharing.
We're taught to be avoidant, regardless of how confident or secure we are, avoiding those soul destroying feelings. Then when you write about it and you have to put it down, you realise how much it was on you. So there's that, but at the same time it’s still being written because there are still moments of destruction that are happening every day.