Flamenco Festival London 2024: Flamenco dance in all its dimensions
Over the course of ten days, 10 selected companies, consisting of 130 Spanish artists and professionals, will present 15 performances, expected to be attended by 19,000 people.
Flamenco dance in all its dimensions
In this 2024 edition, Flamenco Festival London will offer a journey through all aspects of current Spanish dance, beginning with Rocío Molina’s show 'Al Fondo Riela (Lo otro del uno)', on June 4th, at the iconic Sadler’s Wells Theater. Five years after having appeared on this same stage with 'Caída del cielo', the bailaora -who holds two UK National Dance Awards (2016 and 2019) among all her recognitions- returns to London, faithful to her avant-garde style.
‘Farrucas’, ‘seguiriyas’, ‘bulerías’, and ‘soleás’ are some of the ‘palos’ that Molina includes in this piece that is part of 'Trilogía', a research project about the guitar and its relationship with the essential elements of flamenco in which she dances in a relentless struggle against her own image while the guitars of Yerai Cortés and Óscar Lago explore the polyphonic possibilities of this instrument.
From two guitars to two dance masters… Alfonso Losa, master of the Madrid School of Flamenco Dance and winner of the Critics' Award at the 2022 Jerez Festival; and Patricia Guerrero, National Dance Award 2021 and new director of the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, will reveal themselves through dance in 'Alter Ego', a game between two artists who explore their own limits through dance. The show, which also features the singers Sandra Carrasco and Manuel ‘Niño de Gines’, as well as the guitarist Francisco Vinuesa, will arrive at Flamenco Festival London on June 6th after being recognised with the Audience and Critics' Awards at the last edition of the Jerez Flamenco Festival. 'Alter Ego' was developed in an artistic residence of the 'In Progress' Programme: a creative hub that epitomizes the commitment of Flamenco Festival and Torrox City Council for the creation and development of new artistic projects that seek to expand creative horizons in flamenco. The 'In Progress' Programme understands art as a tool for individual and collective transformation, and as a medium that makes possible the dialogue between diverse disciplines and different cultural traditions. The initiative also provides a space for research, experimentation, and reflection on topics of social relevance and offers the ideal technical conditions and necessary advice for the projects to be developed.
On June 7th and 8th, Eva Yerbabuena will captivate the British public with 'Yerbagüena', a show that condenses her singularity and versatility, appealing to duality as an expressive and reflective form. In this proposal, the artist, who is one of the great names in flamenco dance of recent decades, moves between absolute rigidity and the most resounding flexibility, between stillness and movement, light and darkness, singing and dance, classicism and avant-garde, craftsmanship and technology… She will be accompanied on stage by the guitar of Paco Jarana; the singing of Miguel Ortega, Manuel de Ginés, Segundo Falcón, and El Turry; the dance of Cristian Lozano; and the percussion and electronic music of Dani Suárez.
In addition, the Giraldillo Award Winner for Best Flamenco Show at the Seville Biennial 2020 and the Critics' Award at the Jerez Festival 2021, '¡Fandango!' will arrive in London on June 10th thanks to Flamenco Festival. David Coria and David Lagos & Company depart from concepts such as tradition, history, customs, or popular voices to build "a Spanish extravagant fantasy, a flamenco world in itself, where we evoque and homage the past, present, and future of our history; from our origins to possible transformations; from avant-garde to tradition," as they themselves explain. David Coria, recently recognized with the Talía Award for Best Male Dance Performer and one of the most relevant artists of 21st-century flamenco avant-garde; and David Lagos, who firmly paves new paths for flamenco singing, embody "the party and the fire" of '¡Fandango!' accompanied by Paula Comitre, Florencia Oz, Marta Gálvez, and Rafa Ramírez in dance; Alfredo Lagos on guitar; Juan Jiménez on saxophone; and Daniel Muñoz 'Artomático' with electronic music.
To close Flamenco Festival London 2024, the National Ballet of Spain will offer four nights of 'Invocación'. A total of 38 dancers directed by Rubén Olmo (National Dance Award 2015) will step onto the Sadler’s Wells stage on June 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th with this show, the first designed by Olmo, which offers a global vision of Spanish dance, covering most of its styles. As its director points out, in 'Invocación' "you can enjoy a flamenco full of life and strength, a ballet of the purest stylized dance, and one of the few recent choreographies of 'escuela bolera'". The piece, which was also staged in the last edition of Flamenco Festival New York, includes a special tribute to the dancer and choreographer Mario Maya (1937-2008), one of the great masters of Spanish dance, through the adaptation of one of his choreographies, 'De lo flamenco', which Olmo recovers and highlights for this occasion.