Generaciones

13 July 1984 is a turning point in Spanish dance. That day the Ballet Nacional de España presented at the Zarzuela a programme that thirty years later still remains in the memory of those who watched it. One of the numbers was Ritmos, a piece Alberto Lorca dedicated to one of the icons of Spanish dance, Encarnación López “La Argentinita”. With this choreography Lorca did the same that George Balanchine had done regarding classical dance, with a piece like Theme and Variations. José Nieto’s music –a score both “heterodox” and fascinating– provides the backdrop for classical-pure Spanish dance movements, a range of steps in a work ruled by abstraction and full of magnetic dynamism. 

Ritmos performance (Teatro de la Zarzuela, 2009)

This piece has its origins in the time Rubén Olmo asked me to create a new ad-hoc choreography with the First Dancer of the Ballet Nacional de España, Inmaculada Salomón. We had struck up a mutual understanding while putting together Electra (2017), a complicity that allowed us to go deeper into the creative process this time round, with an intimacy that is inherent in solo performance, but with a subtlety and nuance that only a performer of her sensitivity, maturity and experience can aspire to. As a result of my interest in Spain’s musical heritage, I discovered the Sevillian composer, Manuel Blasco De Nebra (1750-1784), and his original repertoire of Sonatas and Pastorelas for harpsichord and pianoforte. It was playing around with his music that inspired this creation. Its choreographic
language navigates, without prejudice, the bolero school and stylised contemporary dance, placing Goyaesque cadences and deconstructions alongside elements from the dance of today. With pristine
lighting and old-time wardrobe design, Pastorela is a poetic dialogue between music and movement, between the ephemeral and the eternal. A miniature of that which is past, a relic of that which is to come.
Antonio Ruz

Rubén Olmo and Miguel Ángel Corbacho have created four pieces inspired by Antonio Ruiz Soler’s style, aesthetic and character. These choreographies run through the history of traditional flamenco, all the way from its origins, a progression that is reflected in both the costumes and the music. This journey through the song, dance and music of primordial flamenco passes through the flamenco palos that are often found in Antonio’s work: the zorongo, the martinete, the taranto and the caracoles. It follows the blueprint for set design that he used in his flamenco performances, but with more modern choreography.

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