Lali Ayguadé, the acclaimed Barcelona-born dancer-turned-choreographer, brings her first full-length dance production Kokoro to Leicester’s Curve Theatre this Tuesday, January 26th. The piece offers a variation on a theme explored by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui in Fractus: how, in a world divided into societies built for individuals, can we confront the pressing need to adapt, to… Read more »
Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui talks about Fractus V, a contemporary dance piece currently on European tour, that explores the complexities of communicating in a world divided by prejudice and swamped in misinformation. Inspired by the ways of thinking of Noam Chomsky, afflicted by the recent violence in Paris and Brussels, the 75-minute piece brings five dancers of radically… Read more »
A middle-aged, peroxide blonde Helen of Troy staggers into a neon-lit bar and pours herself a drink. So begins the Spanish-language play Juicio a una Zorra, a powerful and passionate monologue delivered by acclaimed actress Carmen Machi (Hable con Ella, Abrazos Rotos), on at Teatre Goya (Barcelona) from 19th – 31st January 2016. Director Miguel Del Arco wrote the piece to give… Read more »
Nàufrags is a piece of visual / puppet theatre on the theme of ‘the shipwrecked’, created by the film and stage director Lluís Danés. The last instalment in Mercat de les Flors’ innovative performance cycle Oh! Poètiques de la Il.lusió is a visually and atmospherically accomplished piece, engineered to disturb its audience with a range of cinematic devices. Billowing black bin bags, mood lighting… Read more »
It’s a likely sell out, but tickets are still available for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s contemporary dance piece Fractus V at Barcelona’s dance space Mercat de les Flors next week/end (January 14th – 17th). I don’t mean to be patronising, but to see the choreographer in Barcelona for four dates in a dance space existing on… Read more »
Still bug-eyed and trembling after this extraordinary one-day-only encounter between the Malaga-born, National Dance Award-winning flamenco dancer Roció Molina, and the Catalan artistic / technological / performative / musical collective CaboSanRoque! In rustling robotic desert surroundings, under the blood red gaze of a wandering moon, Molina emerges from a quivering cage of erect metallic measuring tapes. Then, donning the cropped bejewelled… Read more »
Oh-my-gosh, it was indeed a Happy New Year! thanks to this blinding Catalan production of Marits i Mullers. Director Àlex Rigola’s sweet, slick, highly inventive and immensely enjoyable theatrical adaptation of Woody Allen’s 1992 movie, Husbands and Wives, was not only better than the original – kinda, but notably generous to the public. It made me think of… Read more »
Almost all hope of gender intrigue dissolved in the outdated absurdity and odd ‘masculinity’ of this Catalan-language version of a female King Lear (Rei Lear)! This not very Christmassy Shakespearean tragedy, about an old king flattered and then betrayed by his daughters, is glum enough as it is – but this was indeed a most disheartening production!… Read more »
Triple tragedy at Barcelona’s Teatre Lliure this last weekend with three Greek plays in Spanish! Oedipus Rex, Antigone (both Sophocles) and Medea (Euripides), directed by Alfredo Sanzol, Miguel del Arco and Andrés Lima respectively, were Teatro de la Abadia / Teatro de la Ciudad co-productions, though I suspect the funding was not evenly distributed. They had premiered… Read more »
In its fourth edition performing arts festival Sâlmon (November 26 to December 5) stamps its identity on the international festival circuit as both socially relevant and visually innovative. From a showcase for dancers in a European framework, the festival has graduated into a manifestation of new collaborative work by unconventional Latin American, southern European and… Read more »
