“A Federico according to Eva, according to the idea which my regard has shaped of him”. Eva Yerbabuena thus defines ‘Federico según Lorca’, the show with which she answers the assignment from the annual series Lorca & Granada and with which she faces Lorca’s subject matter for the first time. The show premieres on July 12th, 2011 at the 60th International Music and Dance Festival of Granada, later on running at the Generalife Gardens from July 20th to August 27th. At her side, she has Paco Jarana as composer and music director, Vicente Palacios as stage designer, López de Santos on wardrobe, a dance corps with seven dancers, guitarists, percussionists and the cantaor triangle consisting of Enrique el Extremeño, José Valencia and Pepe de Pura.  

Eva Yerbabuena, 'Federico según Lorca'

Between the initial piece ‘Humanamente humo’ and the closing one ‘Esperando turno’, the show is structured in eleven scenes choreographed by Eva Yerbabuena. In two of them she relies on the participation of members of the company: Mercedes de Córdoba in ‘Luz en sus mejillas’ and Fernando Jiménez in ‘Castigo del deseo’. Both of them shape up a dance corps with three bailaoras and three bailaores, who are joined by Asime Can Özözer as a special extra. The creative crew is highlighted by guitarist Paco Jarana, composer of the original score and music director. He performs the music live together with Manuel de la Luz on guitar, as well as Manuel José Muñoz ‘Pájaro’ and Raúl Domínguez on percussions. The cante is by Enrique el Extremeño, José Valencia and Pepe de Pura. The stage design is by Vicente Palacios and the wardrobe, by López de Santos.  

‘Federico según Lorca’ stemmed from a question which Yerbabuena asked herself at the start of her career as a choreographer. “What would I do, being from Granada, if I were assigned a show project about this well-known (I was still convinced) Lorca?”, she wondered. After discovering the poem ‘Asesinato’, “I spent months delving into his writings in which I discovered, astonished, that this Lorca, who I thought I knew, who was so familiar to me, was a different Lorca”. And from that discovery arose “this mosaic which makes up” the show, “a Federico according to Eva, according to the idea which my regard (perhaps corrupted by childhood experiences which seem similar to me) has shaped of him, but in which Lorca, his work, has held out its hand to me”.

Eva Yerbabuena, 'Federico según Lorca'

About the music

In Paco Jarana’s view, the inspiration hasn’t arisen “so much from his work as from his anecdotes, his landscapes, and above all, from the talks about him. So it hasn’t been about music, his poetry or his life, but rather having sort of an idea about him to whisper a certain musical concept to”. And the Sevillian musician specifies that the show’s musical concept “runs between two poles (on the one hand traditional flamenco, and on the other, contemporary music for baile)”.

Eva Yerbabuena, 'Federico según Lorca'