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MAINTENANCE
Artistic direction:
Ruben Olmo
SPAIN
The purpose of the BNE it to preserve, spread and convey Spain’s rich choreographic heritage, including its diverse styles and traditions, which are represented by different forms: academic, stylised, folklore, bolera, and flamenco. It also works to attract new audiences and boost its national and international scope while being fully independent artistically and creatively.
PROGRAM 1
generaciones
Spanish dance, between tradition and renewal. A mixed program of repertory and new choreography, based on the tradition of Spanish dance and reflecting the evolution of scenic proposals through three generations of creators. The program begins with a flamenco classic or, alternatively, a piece by Antonio Canales, followed by three solos by contemporary choreographers with very different personalities who are renewing flamenco and Spanish dance, making them permeable to other styles. The director of the Ballet Nacional de España, Rubén Olmo, justifies the need to maintain the classics without losing sight of new trends.
translation in progress
generaciOnes
generaciOnes
RITMOS
Pastorela
Aurora
Jacaranda
one of these
3 solos
is inserted between
rytmo and grito
GRITO
Premiere at the Teatro de la Zarzuela on July 13, 1984 by the Ballet Nacional de Espana, directed by Maria de Avila.
translation
in progress
Alberto Lorca dedicated his choreography to Encarnación López aka "La Argentinita". There is no argument for this choreography only a visual recreation of the pure abstraction of dance. A show in which symmetry becomes art through the development of its five movements. The rhythm of the heels, the vibrant pirouettes and the character of the castanets create a virtuoso ensemble of sound and movement.
Choreography:
Alberto Lorca
Music:José Nieto
Lighting design:
Freddy Gerlache (AAI)
Eduardo Solís y Asier Basterra
Costumes:Pin Morales, Román Arango
Ballet Masters:
Maribel Gallardo,Cristina Visús,
Miguel Ángel Corbacho
ritmo
01
World premiere at Teatro del Canal in Madrid on Sept. 8 – 2002
translation in progress
This piece has its origin in the invitation that Rubén Olmo made me two years ago to create a new ad hoc choreography with the first dancer of the BNE, Inmaculada Salomón. The complicity that arose between Inma and I during the staging of Electra (2017) leads us on this occasion to delve deeper into the creative process, with the intimacy involved in working alone and the level of subtleties and nuances that only a performer with her sensitivity, maturity and experience can achieve. As a result of my interest in the Spanish musical legacy, I discovered the Sevillian composer Manuel Blasco De Nebra (1750-1784) and his original repertoire of Sonatas and Pastorelas for harpsichord and piano forte. The inspiration for this creation was born from playing with that music. The choreographic language navigates between the bolero school, stylized and contemporary dance, making cadences and Goyaesque deconstructions coexist with evolutions of today's dance. With a costume design of a clear historicist perfume and a refined lighting, Pastorela proposes a poetic dialogue between music and movement, between the ephemeral and the eternal. A miniature of yesterday, a relic of tomorrow.
Choreography:Antonio Ruiz
Collaboration:Inmaculada Salomón
Music:Sonata n° 1 en do mineur (Allegro), Pastorela n° 6 en mi mineur (Menuet) de Manuel Blasco de Nebra
Piano live:José Luis Franco
Lightings design:Olga García (AAI)
Costumes:Alejandro Andújar
Rehearsals:Diana Noriega et Miguel Ángel Corbacho
PASTORELA
02
World premiere at Teatro deL Canal on Sept. 9th - 2022
translation in progress
Blunted, or broken, the dawn The dawn breaks
It is born from a photograph of predetermination, of the ‘I’. And of the need to reach the breaking point on the path that takes us out of our comfort zone and through our multiple personalities, composing an image that represents us in a more truthful way. A meeting place between our honour and our vulnerability, a place to recognise and accept ourselves in the abyss.‘Like the first light of morning, this dawn rises ready to reveal its true nature’. Jesús Carmona
Choreography:Jesús Carmona
Solo dancer:Miriam Mendoza
Music: El Corpus Christi en Sevilla by Isaac Albéniz
Live piano:José Luis Franco
Lighting design:Nicolás Fischtel (AAI)
Costumes: Belén de la Quintana
Rehearsal teacher:Maribel Gallardo
Rehearsal teachers: Diana Noriega and Miguel Ángel Corbacho
AURORA
03
World premiere on Sept. 10 – 2022 at Teatro Canal in Madrid
translation in progress
In our imagination, the jacaranda is related to the tree that grows in many Latin American cities. It is synonymous with springtime when it comes into bloom. It is an ornamental tree with purple-blue tubular flowers, but it is also synonymous with femininity, beauty, essence and fragrance. The jacaranda is a walk at sunset, it is a woman's dance. It is a symbiosis between the essence of nature and woman.
Rubén Olmo
Choreography: Rubén Olmo
Solo dancer: Débora Martínez
Music: Suite de Danzas Criollas, Opus 15, by Alberto Ginastera
Live piano: José Luis Franco
Lighting design: Luis Perdiguero (AAI)
Costume design: Anselmo Gervolés
Rehearsal directors: Diana Noriega and Miguel Ángel Corbacho
JACARANDA
04
World premiere at Teatro Galos de Las Palmas on Dec. 09 – 1997
translation in progress
Antonio Canales created this choreography for the Ballet Nacional de España, in which he explores the different palos (musical forms) of flamenco: Seguirillas, Soleá, Alegrías, Tientos and Tangos.
Choreography:
Antonio Canales
Music:
José Mª Bandera, José Carlos Gómez, José Jiménez “El Viejín”,
Juan Ignacio Gómez Gorjón “Chicuelo”
Lighting design:
Sergio Spinelli
Lighting adaptation:
Eduardo Solís and Asier Basterra
Costume design:
Pedro Moreno
Revival of Grito:
Mónica Fernández and Pol Vaquero
Rehearsal director:
Maribel Gallardo
Rehearsal director:
Miguel Ángel Corbacho
GRITO
05
GENERACIONES
a program
composed
of
3 proposals
on
5 pieces
GENERACIONES
a program
composed
of
3 proposals
on
5 pieces
PROGRAM 2
AFANADOR
NOTE of NTENt
Original concept and Artistic Direction: Marcos Morau
Inspired and fascinated as I was with the books Ángel Gitano and Mil Besos, when it came to putting together this show, I knew it could never be an attempt merely to copy the beauty therein. Ruven Afanador’s masterful photo sessions in Andalusia are unrepeatable: it would be impossible to repeat the alchemy that formed between the photographer and figures with such charisma as Israel Galván, Matilde Coral, Eva Yerbabuena, José Antonio and the BNE’s very own Rubén Olmo. My journey begins where those sessions end, and when I stop dreaming about them, unable to remember the full details or to subject them to a logic that has become lost along the way, that is when I find myself overcome by the desire to wake up. Afanador is born out of the tension between the fascination that emanates from Ruven Afanador’s photos and my own fascination for mystery, both of the day and the night, that so fascinated Ruven in his day. I studied photography and am the grandson of a photographer. Although I never took up photography professionally, it has always been very present in my work as a set director and creator of worlds. With his incredibly meticulous staging and evocative images, Ruven Afanador has forced me to reflect on the fundamental kinship between photographic and choreographic composition: the corporeal challenge shared by both: to capture life – that which, by definition, does not allow itself to be captured. Ruven Afanador observes flamenco through a lens that is deforming, a lens made of dreams, desire and memories. If the elements of tradition are reassuring by definition, what happens when they become strange and unrecognisable? The surrealist gaze of Afanador towards flamenco is very similar to the gaze towards the world that has developed in my work over the years with La Veronal: one that tries not to represent the world that exists, but rather to invent new ones. When asked about cinema, Estrella de Diego, whom I paraphrase, said: “One must enter that dark space without premeditation, with the film already having started, but without knowing beforehand what is being shown, dragged along by chance and fortune. One must sit down and abandon oneself to one’s senses without preparation, and the senses must not have been guided via opinions or synopses. One must go to the cinema in search of something other than the story that is being told. One must know that in the cinema, as in life, one always ends up identifying with oneself, and never the character or the plot.” I would like people to come to see us in that frame of mind, as in certain dreams where we recognise places, people and landscapes – and without understanding the specific events, we know that they are really about us.
Marcos Morau
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AFANADOR WORLD PREMIERE
1 December 2023
Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville
artistic team
Original concept and artistic direction: Marcos Morau
Choreography: Marcos Morau & La Veronal
Lorena Nogal Shay ,PartushJon López ,Miguel Ángel Corbacho
Dramaturgy:Roberto Fratini
Set design:Max Glaenzel
Set production:Mambo Decorados y May Servicios para Espectáculos
Costume design:Silvia Delagneau
Costume production:Iñaki Cobos
Musical composition:Juan CristóbalSaavedra
Special collaboration with:Maria Arnal
Music of Mineras and Seguiriyas: Enrique Bermúdez and Jonathan Bermúdez
Lyrics of Temporera: Trilla, Liviana, Bambera and Seguiriya: Gabriel de la Tomasa
Lighting design: Bernat Jansà
Electronic universe design and implementation: José Luis Salmerón of CUBE PEAK
Video design: Marc Salicrù
Photography: Ruven Afanador
Hairpieces: Carmela Cristóbal
Hairstyles: JuanjoDex
Hairdressing consultant: Manolo Cortes
Makeup consultant: Rocío Santana
Shoes: Gallardo
translation in progress
Ruvén Afanador's gaze is not documentary:
he does not provide history with an archive of events, styles or personalities. Nor is it monumental: he does not seek to recreate a glamorous and photogenic image of his subject. Afanador's gaze is desirous: it distorts its subject and allows itself to be distorted by it. The object of desire is obscure by definition. Desire makes us ignorant, inexperienced, incompetent, because to desire is to fixate on what is slipping away, to focus on a disappearance. Desire composes its object, and sometimes invents it, in order to continue observing it. And thus, it produces another kind of knowledge, subjective, infallible and revealing. The object reveals itself to the eyes and reveals them.
By approaching the multiverse of Andalusian folklore from the perspective of desire, Afanador forces it to reveal itself, and it does. As if dreaming, he allows the slips of the tongue, the delusions, the subconscious of flamenco, its erotic and death drives, its undocumented truths to emerge. He unfurls it in a thousand amplifications, like a grotesque and sumptuous world, an unthinkable body of shadow and light. While looking into the abyss of flamenco, he allows himself to be looked at by it.
Our work is just another link in this genealogy of dreams and desire: it recounts (or reveals) our view of Ruvén Afanador observing his models. And it speaks of photography as an astonishing event of the world in the eyes. There is no plot: there is only caprice, as in Goya's memorable graphic series: familiar themes and recognisable gestures, like masked characters from a troupe of ‘motifs’, are found in the images, as if they were calling out to each other, by association, analogy, attraction;
or through a frenzied game of angelic and diabolical metamorphoses: the caprices speak of nothing other than the image as miracle and sabbath. There is no photograph that is not suspended by a sigh, or a thousand and one kisses, from the fire that burns the image.
Roberto Fratini
TOUR CALENDAR 24/25
04 > 06
Grand Théâtre de Provence,
Aix-en-Provence, France
-
4>6
Grand Théâtre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France
DECEMBEr
-
22 & 23
Palais des Festivals, Grand Auditorium, France
-
27 >29
MC2, Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, France
-
22&23
Palais des Festivals, Grand Auditorium, France
-
27>29
MC2, Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, France
november
BALLET NACIONAL DE ESPAÑA > AFANADOR
BACK
SEETHE NEXT DATES
BALLET NACIONAL DE ESPAÑA > AFANADOR
04 > 06
Grand Théâtre de Provence,
Aix-en-Provence, France
AFANADOR
-
1er & 2
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, France
DECEMBEr
-
22 & 23
Palais des Festivals, Grand Auditorium, France
-
27 >29
MC2, Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, France
AFANADOR
-
27 > 29 & 31
Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, France
november
BALLET NACIONAL DE ESPAÑA > AFANADOR
BACK
SEETHE NEXT DATES
LA BELLE OTERO
-
1er Hong Kong Cultural Center, Hong Kong Arts Festival,
-
Chine
INVOCACION
-
3 & 4
Hong Kong Cultural Center, Arts Festival, Chine