Javier Latorre

Javier Latorre (Valencia, 1963). Bailaor, ballet dancer and choreographer

Javier Latorre started to take his first steps in the world of dance when he was barely four years old. The dancer, originally from Valencia but whose city of choice was to be Córdoba, made his début at sixteen with the Compañía Lírica Nacional. From there he catapulted into the Ballet Nacional de España in 1979, as a soloist under the watchful eye of director Antonio Gades and as the principal ballet dancer with María Ávila. After winning an award at the Avignon festival in France, he teamed up with various colleagues in 1988 to found Ziryab Danza, a troupe for which he was choreographer and principal dancer, and which achieved a notable degree of success with their production ‘Hijas del Alba’. A year later he took the Concurso de Córdoba by storm, winning three of the coveted national prizes. In 1990 he launched a new production ‘La fuerza del destino’ (The power of fate), with which he toured all of Europe, and featured as a guest performer in Mario Maya’s ‘Diálogos del Amargo’ (Embittered dialogues). He also participated in Vicente Amigo’s ‘Concierto flamenco para un marinero en tierra’ (Flamenco concierto for a sailor onshore) just prior to obtaining first prize in the dance category at the Festival de La Unión in 1994.

From 1996 onwards, and without dropping his commitment to teaching, he has worked flat out as a choreographer for others’ productions: ‘Lances del Arenal’, for the closing ceremony of the UNESCO World Dance Congress in Seville; fragments of Antonio Canales’s productions ‘Gitano’ (Gypsy) and ‘Guernika’ (named after the Basque town annihilated by the German air force during the Spanish Civil War, immortalized in Picasso’s painting of the same name); ‘Adiós Nonaino’ with Barcelona’s Mercat de les Flors Choreography Workshop; Antonio Márquez’s ‘Suite flamenca’; ‘Omega’ by Enrique Morente and Lagartija Nick; for the Aida Gómez company; ‘Luz del Alma’ (Light of the Soul) and ‘Poeta’ for the Ballet Nacional de España; ‘Cosas de payos’ (Non-gypsies’ stuff) by the Compañía Andaluza de Danza; ‘Ombra’ by theater company la Fura dels Baus; ‘5Mujeres5’ by Eva la Yerbabuena, whose show ‘Eva’ he also takes part in at the 4th Festival de Jerez... And besides all this, he also took part in the launch of ‘Dadle Café’ in Granada (Give him some coffee), staged by la Fura dels Baus to mark the occasion of the world première of Andy García’s film about Lorca.

In 2000 Javier Latorre staged his own production ‘Ambi-valencia’, premièred as part of the Flamenco Viene del Sur season at the Teatro Central in Sevilla, and two years later it plays at the Festival de Jerez. He also directs and choreographs ‘Pura Intención’ together with Fernando Romero, the Gran Teatro de Córdoba’s choice with which to inaugurate their contest, the 2001 Concurso Nacional de Flamenco. With the aim of creating a dance and choreography institution in preparation for his retirement from the stage, Latorre created the flamenco comedy ‘Rinconete y Cortadillo’, opening on July 5th 2002 in Granada and co-produced by the Granada Festival Internacional de Música y Danza and Seville’s Biennial Flamenco festival.