The Antonio Gades Company revives
‘Carmen’
to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its premiere
The show is to be performed May 13th to
17th, 2008 at the Teatro Albéniz in Madrid
S.C. Madrid, May 7th, 2008
On May 17th, 1983, ‘Carmen’
by Antonio
Gades premiered in Paris. And twenty-five years later,
this flamenco ballet continues to be in full force. Proof
of it is that from May 13th to 17th, 2008, the show -whose
successful film version was created by Carlos Saura -
will be performed at the Teatro Albéniz in Madrid.
Bailaores Stella Arauzo and Adrián Galia are the
stars of the show, which is to be put on “just the
way it was, with the same stage design and the same wardrobe”.
Following its galas in Madrid, the show will journey to
Seville, where it will be performed on June 3rd and 4th
at the Teatro de la Maestranza.
Antonio Gades Company
(Photo Daniel Muñoz)
“Antonio
Gades’s Carmen goes towards sobriety, inwards;
she’s a woman with a lot of nuances: sensuality,
joy, freedom, living the moment... And I’ll take
the Carmen who goes in search of her freedom, and before
losing it, she prefers to fight to the death”. That’s
how Stella Arauzo, the company’s artistic director,
sees the main character in what was the third ballet with
a storyline by the Alicante-born choreographer, which
is now revived at the Teatro Albéniz in Madrid
a quarter of a century after its premiere.
The ballet, co-starring Adrián
Galia, will be performed May 13th to 17th. The bailaor
admits having had “hard moments” playing this
role, which was formerly performed by Gades with Cristina
Hoyos as his partner. But in the end, he has the satisfaction
of “doing things well, like the maestro used to”.
About her partner, Arauzo says that “I feel really
at ease with him due to his discipline, due to his humility,
due to the way of understanding one another. I think we
are two people generous in art who have come together”.
Adrián Galia
and Stella Arauzo. 'Carmen', Antonio Gades Company
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
|
The company’s galas in the Spanish
capital follow a tour throughout last year including one
hundred fifty shows all over the world. And the route
goes on. On June 3rd and 4th, Antonio Gades’s ‘Carmen’
will be at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville. And
there are already performances scheduled from September
to November in countries such as Holland, France and Egypt.
The company is promoted by the Antonio Gades Foundation,
whose priority, according to its president, his daughter
María Esteve, is “respect and affection for
the figure of Antonio Gades and the incredible legacy
he left to the dance world, which even we ourselves discover
every day”.
The company’s next step will be
to stage ‘Fuenteovejuna’. But besides safeguarding
the dancer’s work through the company, according
to Eugenia Eiriz, also a board member of the organization,
the foundation has other projects underway like “publishing
a book about ‘Carmen’, the digitalization
of all of Gades’s archives and pedagogical activities
at schools”. And the thing is that, in Esteve’s
words, “we’re going to put the roots on the
table for the new generations, since he drew on the people
and he wanted to return it to the people”.
