15 years after its last visit to Israel, the Spanish National Ballet returns with a program that celebrates the stylistic and cultural diversity of Spain's dances, and also closes a historic debt with a tribute to legendary flamenco artist Mario Maya.
Next month, the company will embark on a tour in Tel Aviv with the show "Invocación" – a word meaning call / encouragement to action, and in the context of the program that will be presented can be understood as an invitation to observe the stylistic diversity of the dances of Spain, which are an expression of its cultural richness. "I would define the company as a ballet unique in style and identity," says Rubén Olmo, artistic director of the Spanish National Ballet.
"Ballet is unique in its style and identity." Olmo, photo: Merche Burgos
The program that will be presented in Israel is the first designed by Olmo when he took office, and premiered in 2020. The first part will include three relatively short works, two of which were created by Olmo himself: "Invocación Bolera", which presents the style of the Bolera school that developed in Spain towards the end of the 17th century and reached its peak in the 18th century, and merges elements from Spanish folk dances and Italian and French court dances whose influence was present in the early stages of ballet's development as a performing art. This style is danced with soft shoes, accompanied by the playing of castanets, and is characterized by polishing the body lines and displaying virtuoso turns and jumps; "Jauleña" is a short solo inspired by Granada as a cultural mosaic of the 3 religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - and structured as a flowing movement between three stylistic sources (Bolera School, stylized Spanish dance known as "estilizado", and flamenco) presented through contemporary choreographic interpretation.
The third piece, "Eterna Iberia", was created by Antonio Najarro (the company's artistic director from 2011-2019) as a personal look at the stylish Spanish dance following the music of Manuel Moreno-Bundier from 1963, which he translated into spectacular stage pictures, decorated with unique Spanish atributes: the castanets, the Spanish robe and the hat originating in Cordoba.
The second part of the show, "De Lo Flamenco", is a tribute to the legendary flamenco dancer and choreographer, Mario Maya, an award-winning artist who played a major role in shaping flamenco after Franco's dictatorial regime, and died in 2008. The unique dance style he developed intertwined gypsy-rooted flamenco, whose foundations he received from the great dancer Pilar Lopez, with elements of modern dance, to which he was exposed when he went to study in New York in the 60s with artists such as Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and Alvin Nicolais.
Spanish National Ballet - INVOCACIÓN | July 2023
The Spanish National Ballet was founded in 1978 as part of a complex process of rebuilding the country after 36 years of dictatorship, during which culture and the arts were mobilized by the Franco regime to present false images of Spain that flattened the country's inherent multiculturalism by erasing the local characteristics of its various regions. At the same time, they instilled stereotypes of "Spanish" aimed at attracting tourists.
In the first decade of the company's existence, many choreographers – including Antonio Guedes, the company's first artistic director – created performances that were called "flamenco ballet" because of the combination of a variety of Spanish dances and disciplines from Europe and the United States, such as classical ballet, neoclassical and modern dance. In this way, they set in motion the critical transition of flamenco from a nationalist dance identified with dictatorship propaganda, to a national dance that reflects the values of Spain as a renewed democracy.
Despite Mario Maya's rich repertoire – which also included theatrical dance works with spoken text that raised social criticism in the context of Gypsy life – his works were never performed at the Spanish National Ballet. So the company's tribute to him, as Ruben Olmo explains, is "a pending debt to one of the most important choreographers we've had in contemporary flamenco." As part of the work, solos and a band will be presented purely flamenco, accompanied by vocals and live playing, which give expression to the diverse forms of song of this style, and to its modes of movement interpretation that change over time, and in each performer. Some of the dances were created by Maya himself, and others – inspired by his works and his unique movement language.
More of an institution than a show. Spanish National Ballet,
"When he ran the Andalusia Dance Company," Olmo says, "he created a program that changed the aesthetics of flamenco – he had a style and a way of dancing flamenco adapted to ballet dancers." Not coincidentally, all the choreographers chosen to create the dances for the program worked closely with Mario Maya: Manuel Bettenzos and Raffaele Carrasco were senior dancers and assistant choreographers who served as his rehearsal managers; Isabelle Byun was a vocalist in his band; And veteran and esteemed dancer Manolo Marin, Maya's artistic partner, led the design of the re-performance of one of his works that will be featured on the show.
When the Spanish National Ballet was established, its role was perceived as the creation of a living archive containing the canonical repertoire alongside new works, partly due to the distortion of history and the establishment of fictitious narratives of the present during the dictatorship. Antonio Guedes expressed this view well when he declared that the band should serve as an institution and not a performance. Today, it is evident that the Spanish National Ballet continues to preserve this goal, but also adapts it to the spirit of the times, a position that clearly echoes Rubén Olmo's words about what motivates "Invocación": "a pure desire to dance to an audience, who will be able to enjoy any of the disciplines we have in our Spanish dance."
The Spanish National Ballet will perform at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center on July 15-12.
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