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Gipsy Passion

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Joaquín Cortés
"Live at The Royal Albert Hall" (DVD)

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Of gipsy blood, he was born in Cordoba in 1969 and at the age of twelve, moved to Madrid where he began his dance training. He joined the Spanish National Ballet when he was fifteen and quickly rose to the ranks of solo artist. Joaquín toured all over the world with this company, performing in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and the Kremlin´s Congress Palace in Moscow.

After leaving the National Ballet, he took part in a number of gala performances alongside such great figures as Maya Plisetskaya, Silvie Guillen, Pere Schauffus, Marie-Claude Pietragalla and Julio Bocca and colaborated in several different companies and shows as guest artist or choreographer. These works include the choreography for Carmen at the Arena in Verona, his participation in the Summer Flamenco Festival of Tokyo, in various performances at the New York Lincoln Center, his participation in the classical "Don Quijote" with the Caracas Ballet.

After performing at the Champs-Elysée Theatre in Paris in 1992, he created his own company, the Joaquín Cortés Flamenco Ballet. His first show, Cibayí, toured throughout Spain and travelled to Japan, France, Italy, Venezuela and The United States.

Pedro Almodóvar cast him in his first film role in La Flor de mi Secreto (The Flower of my Secret). Later, Joaquín repeated the experience in Carlos Saura's Flamenco, in which he shared the screen with Spain's top flamenco artists.

His second creation, Pasión Gitana (Gipsy Passion), opened in 1995, with the participation of Giorgio Armani designing the wardrobe, the show has run all over Spain, showing in bull rings. Pasión Gitana has also been a success in Europe. It was the first dance show to have closed the prestigious Spoleto Festival (Italy) in its forty eight years of existence and more than five thousand people went to his performance in the Forum of Milan.

In 1996 he did his first tour of USA where he presented, among other places in the Radio City Music Hall in New York (he was the first Spanish dancer to perfom there with his own show), and in the Universal Amphitheatre of Los Angeles.

In 1997 Joaquín launched a CD with his own band the “Gipsy Passion Band” on which he composes and directs the music and colaborates on percussion. The CD contains music from the show as well as new arrangements.

After creating new choreographies for Pasión Gitana in 1997, the show continued touring Latin America and has most recently had success in 1998 in the Sydney Festival, Tokyo, Canada and New York.

In January 1999 the dancer from Córdoba went to New York where he came into contact with other areas of music and dance. It was during this period that he began an artistic collaboration with the choreographer Debbie Allen with whom he went on to participate in the Oscar ceremony of the 71st Academy Awards of Hollywood's academy of motion picture arts. He returned to Spain to prepare his participation in the opening ceremony of the World Athletics championship in Seville where he embodied the person of Hercules for the gala closing ceremony rebroadcast via television throughout the world and viewed by an estimated audience of 25 million.

In early 2000 he debuted in the cinema with his first starring role. Filming began of the movie Gitano written by Arturo Pérez Reverte and directed by Manuel Palacios. The cast also includes the French model Laetitia Casta as well as Pilar Bardem, Marta Belaustegui and José Luis Gómez. At the same time Cortés was on the road with his international tour of 'Soul', a show he eventually brought to London's Sadler's Wells, Beijing, Hannover's Expo 2000, Beirut's Beittedine festival as well as to South America.

For Joaquín Cortés the year 2001 began with the opening of the Viña del Mar, a festival of Latin American music where no dancer had taken part in forty-two years. Around the same time, together with Pino Saliocco, he produced the show Pura Pasión directed by his uncle Cristóbal Reyes. The premiere performance was on February 28th, 2001. A few days later another premiere took place in Barcelona at the Teatro Tívoli with the show 'Live'. This work continues to be current on stages throughout the world after having been presented in the most important cities of Latin America, Europe and Russia. A hundred thousand spectators were able to enjoy the show throughout the season.