Carmen Cortés
She was born in Barcelona to Andalusian parents. Her first contact with dance was through Flamenco. She acquires knowledge of Classical Dance at the National Ballet School. Undergraduate Degree in Dance in 1994.
2005 La puerta del Silencio (The Door of Silence) is opened by her to leave us blind, deaf. She opens it for us and masterfully describes her work as an instructor through art, dance, cante, music, flamenco dancing, poetry, painting,
images we are going to try to collect and channel into the hotbed of words and popular customs. She opens La puerta del Silencio for us to let us see the great injustice faced by art and culture. Therefore, and to make it known to everyone who tries to silence us and leave our mind blank with their impositions, we shall have them see that they are around art, dance, flamenco dancing... but not with it.
We shall make it seen that they are performed air-tight. We are not going to linger before creativity, imagination, fantasy...
2004 Celestina The show stars three women. The dramatic ballet is developed beginning with a central love story, the tale of Calixto and Melibea and the tragic death of both of them, but its dramatic structure consists of three acts, each of which stars one of the women and her own version of the story. Each of them will tell us her vision of the conflict from her character’s perspective. Directed by Gerardo Vera and premiered at the Jerez de la Frontera Festival (Cádiz).
The show is set in an era of crucial changes in Spain’s social and political history: the Middle Ages.
2003 Piezas Únicas (Based on “The Suppliants” by Aeschylus). The plot is developed in the specific setting of a flamenco show split up into several choreographies interpreting the different actions. It is a show inspired by the classic tragedy and with furiously contemporary criteria. On the one hand the chorus of the Danaides, their father Danaus and Hypermestra carry out musical structures based on flamenco rhythms while the EGYPTIANS shall be handled with an approach closer to the musical and rhythmic structures of contemporary dance. The scent of Greek folk music will unite both trends in a single idea.
The staging begins in a unique setting. An empty beach with fishermen’s nets dyed in several shades of blue under a menacing lead-colored sky, which will change in shape and size as the action goes along.
The music will be composed by Gerardo Núñez starting from precise research on flamenco musical structures fused with Greek folk music along the lines of composers such as Mikis Theodorakis, Manos Hadjidakis, Giorgios Dallares... etc.
También Muere El Mar arises from some poets not chosen by chance. They belong to the so-called Generation of ’27, involved in one of the most difficult political and sociocultural times of our recent history.
Besides their huge cultural value, they never stopped being connected to the people, and this makes us take them as a reference for music and dance such as flamenco which arises from the people and is their spontaneous expression.For all of these reasons, we believe that reviving and linking these old poets’ work to our artform is more current than ever, since although we recognize the value of most of today’s flamenco shows and the importance of their contributions, in others we observe a loss of what was and is this beautiful centennial artform.
It premiered in Galapagar in December 2002.
Soleá, Un Son Eterno has been a visual and at the same time emotional recreation for Carmen Cortés of the meaning of flamenco’s values in the course of her personal life and professional career.
This is one of the shows she has created thinking more as a Director and Choreographer than as a Bailaora.
With this show, she has tried to coax the soul, the vitality of her dancers and her musicians to reach the very heart of the emotions stirred by the Soleá.
Premiered at the 2000 Madrid Fall Festival.
Racial, premiered at Aragón’s Theater Fair in November 1999. It is a return to our most ancestral roots. It is a reference to the source that has to be drawn upon, of her most flamenco flavor. Carmen’s idea was for the Company to act as a springboard for flamenco artists, whether they were bailaores, cantaores or musicians well-known or not by the greater public.
Invited to the inauguration of Universiada’99 held in Palma de Mallorca. Cesc Gelabert, Lucrecia, Luis Cobos, etc. take part; she does a choreography for 100 dancers.
Choreography for her Company in the television special “Tatuaje”. Directed by Gerardo Vera.
Así Pasen Cien Años premiered in November 1998 at the Valladolid Theater Festival.
In the same year of 1998, she was a finalist for best dancer in the Max Performing Arts Awards for her show YERMA. She alternates performances of the shows Salomé and Yerma, besides teaching and her performances as a soloist.
1997 Carmen Cortés stages Salomé, in Oscar Wilde’s version. Choreography by Carmen Cortés, music by Gerardo Nuñez, stage and dramatic art direction by Gerardo Vera. It is the first time that the Mérida Classical Theater Festival opens its festival with dance and it is the first time a flamenco version is staged of an emblematic work like “Salomé”.
1996 She creates Yerma by Federico García Lorca.
Artistically, flamenco contains every key to express human beings’ most concealed emotions. In this case these keys are seized to tell Yerma, guiding the text through the music, dance and acting.
Artistic bases that are already found in the work which will make it possible to exemplify simple but very intense staging. Situations and characters, through flamenco, debating between time, love and death, taken from Federico García Lorca and restored, enriched by a vision of the world which is both particular and universal at the same time.
A Yerma which at that time meant the contribution of flamenco to a subject and an idea where theater was the fundamental base of its proposition. Choreography by Carmen Cortés, direction and dramatic art by Nuria Espert, musical direction and composition by Gerardo Nuñez. This Yerma was selected by the Federico García Lorca Foundation to be a part of the official activities program of the Federico Centennial which was commemorated in 1998.
She is invited by the Phillips Theater in Eindhoven (Holland) to its annual inaugural concert in the year 1996 with this Theater’s Philharmonic Orchestra.
In the year ’95, she creates A Federico, which is a ballet stressing the image of the flamenco which so captivated our poet. Different elements are highlighted in this ballet which have marked an era in the history of flamenco. As an example, we can mention the use of the bata de cola (flamenco dress with a train) in the female baile, the palillos (castanets), the mantoncillo (shawl) as a clothing accessory or the typical bailaor costume with its high-waist trousers, vest, short jacket, frilled shirt or the very hat in the style of the Andalusian herdsman outfit or of the bullfighter on horseback. Different choreographies are developed through this ballet, remaining forever etched in our mind the flamenco-Andalusian pictures which so enticed this great poet.
In the year ’93-’94 she goes on tour through the National Network of Theaters and Auditoriums coordinated by the Ministry of Culture. The tour was with the shows El Amor Brujo in a new version with four flamenco guitars and Los Gabrieles (Tribute to the Singing Café of the early twentieth century).
In 1990 she premieres another show based on Cantes De Ida Y Vuelta (“Round-trip Cantes”), so-called due to their origins in Latin America and even in our most traditional and purest flamenco. At the same time, she choreographs and premieres the theater-dance show Memoria Del Cobre, written and conceived for her by Francisco Suárez.
Following the youth movement on the rise in Flamenco, she carries out the Flamenco-Jazz fusion show Cantoblepas together with drummer José Antonio Galicia and solo guitarist Gerardo Nuñez, who takes care of the music.
Premio Cabal al Baile (Cabal Prize for Baile) 1988.
1988 She carries out a study on today’s and yesterday’s Flamenco. Taking it as a base, she puts together the new show Flamenco-Flamenco. She highlights the three pillars of flamenco in it: cante, toque and baile.
She forms her own group with the avant-garde show Acontraluz, based on the harmony of motions, esthetics and musical chords.
As a contrast to the general tendency of Carmen Cortés’ Flamenco Dancing, she stars in the classical show Las Furias, directed by Francisco Suárez and choreographed by maestro Granero.
She takes part in International Dance Festivals both as a soloist and with her Dance Company.
In March of the year 2000 she collaborates in Le Bal de la Rose, organized annually by the Prince and Princess of Monaco and dedicated this year to the sculptor Botero.
