A painting by Dalí announces the coming festival, which runs from August 6th to 16th 2003

Carmen Jiménez

The wheels are already in motion at the Festival Internacional del Cante de las Minas, months before its official opening date. The organizing committee has announced that this year's special featured artist will be Antonio Gades, and will now set about the business of selecting participants for the August event at La Unión, in Murcia province.

	Antonio Gades (Photo: Paco Sánchez)

The forty-third edition of the miners' festival, to be held between August 6th and 16th at La Unión in Murcia, pays homage this year to bailaor and choreographer Antonio Gades. As is the case every year at this event, a special public tribute is made to a leading figure from within the flamenco arts. Juanito Valderrama, Fosforito, Mario Maya, Manolo Sanlúcar and La Paquera have all earned this illustrious distinction from La Unión, a homage in recognition of their outstanding artistic careers.

Gades has gratefully received the organizing committee's unanimous decision to bestow the award upon him. The ex-director of the Spanish National Ballet Company thus receives recognition for productions such as 'Bodas de Sangre', premièred in 1974 and taken to stages worldwide, a work inspired by the Federico García Lorca play. In a similar vein, he later created the ballet 'Carmen' for theater, as well as 'Fuego', 'El amor Brujo' and 'Fuenteovejuna', among others.

As the announcement of Gades as the 2003 special featured artist was confirmed, the event organizers were already getting preparations under way for the long build-up to the event. In the coming months, the jury for the vocal and guitar contests will travel up and down the country, making a rigorous selection of aspiring Spanish newcomers, careful never to lose that close link they maintain with the informal peñas flamencas and cultural organizations which take part.

At the same time, the festival's international facet goes from strength to strength. Each year more and more visitors from every corner of the world attend the festival, but the international significance is evidenced even more plainly by the numerous invitations the festival receives from official and private entities from all over the world, anxious to host the event. In fact the festival has already traveled to Japan, the U.S., Italy, The Philippines, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Britain and Portugal.

A Dalí painting as festival poster

A work by genius Salvador Dalí will form the basis of the festival poster. This continues a long tradition at the event, grabbing the public's attention by using the work of great artists to promote the festival. Artists whose work has been featured to-date have included Sáez, Conesa, Bernal, Gaya, Chillida, Saura, Barceló, Miró and Picasso, a truly great showcase of contemporary Spanish painting. Last year a complete collection of the festival posters was published, and an exhibition of the posters entitled 'Los Carteles del Festival' was seen in galleries all over the world.

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