CARMEN CORTÉS COMPAÑÍA DE DANZA FLAMENCA

LOR

CA’S WO MEN

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Women move the pages of Lorca’s theatre. The men are seated

in the margins, or walking in between lines. The women blow the pages with the breeze of their breaths so that they turn one after the other. It is the women who with the

winds of their passions allow the written pages to take off and fly and come to life. And from their hot-blooded veins flows the red ink that fills the poet’s most inspired syllables with truth. Lorca’s women move, and in their feet lays the geography of enjoyment and pain. Their shoes are an atlas that contains continents of emotion. The footprints of their steps are chronicles of voyages to the soul. Word made muscle dances, spelling the joints of life. Vowels and consonants look at each other in silence and suddenly begin to dance, in unison, the vowels and consonants dance, and they combine in their choreography, and united they form the words of these universal women. Lorca’s Women / Mujeres de Lorca. Tomás Afán

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Lorca’s Women is a recreation of the most important female characters from Federico García Lorca’s body of work. These characters oscillate between acceptance of their destiny and rebellion. García Lorca condenses all of the emotion of a woman’s life into her impulses, dreams and struggles. He explores themes rooted in the most intimate fibers of the female soul. And time and death are inseparable presences that also stir unrest.

All of the characters are united by a single conflict and an identical behavioral structure that details of which are collected in the following section. They are presented in two worlds: one is that of Bernarda, and the characters from , who could live in the same town. They are timeless dramas. The other is that of Doña Rosita and , who share a specific time period and the atmosphere of bourgeois society during the XIX century. The shoemaker’s wife is halfway between the two, as she inhabits a rural environment but maintains a tone that resembles that of the XIX century plays.

In this production, Carmen Cortés exhibits her intensely personal style of dance: her distancing from verticality transmits a constant restlessness; her twisted appearance and her physical instability transmit an interesting psychological unrest that marries perfectly with Lorca’s dramas on femininity, motherhood and love without hope… Her passionate dance transmits a vision of Lorca’s women through theatre and flamenco.

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PROGRAM

• The House of Bernarda Alba • Yerma • The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife • Mariana Pineda • Doña Rosita the Spinster • Blood Wedding

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In Bernarda Alba,

tradition is represented by Bernarda, who is

portrayed as a monolithic

and inflexible character.

In the beginning desire is present in all of her daughters, but as the play progresses, it’s Adela who commits completely to her desire right up to its disastrous consequences, while Angustias and especially Martirio, in their dispute over the man, become Bernarda’s repressive allies.

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In Yerma, the internal conflict resides in the fact that the protagonist is not in love with her husband. She

desires another man, and she sublimates this desire into motherhood, which she is not able to achieve with

her husband.

There are several community acts and rituals in which Yerma’s desire is latent: the scene with the washer women and the scene with the conjure woman and the pilgrimage. Ultimately, Yerma’s internal contradictions explode into the murder of her husband, which is also a kind of suicide, as she has shut every door to the possibilities of liberating her desire and having a child.

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In The Shoemaker, the intimate conflict is found in the shoemaker’s wife’s relatively repressed desire to flirt with other men. A public confrontation occurs with her neighbors, with the community, and the fact that she doesn’t hide her feelings at any moment means that the play will not have a tragic finale .

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In Mariana Pineda, the protagonist’s intimate conflict radiates from her love for the revolutionary Pedro and his political commitment.

Community involvement is more diluted in this case, but she keeps up appearances in front of the community. And a complete rupture comes as a consequence of her decision not to turn in her lover, which leads to her execution.

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In Doña Rosita, the borders between desire and tradition are vague. Rosita is imbued in a bourgeois environment that Lorca portrays amiably and slightly idealized. Her surroundings have given Rosita a completely internalized, strict moral code, which she only criticizes at the end, explaining why the main conflict is expressed in the form of a monolog.

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In Blood Wedding, the

intimate conflict lies with the bride, who desires a

married man but not the

one she is marrying.

The community involvement is clearly that of the rituals that accompany the wedding. With the bride’s escape and the subsequent brawl, the outcome of her desire is clear, brusquely concluding in disastrous consequences.

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THE COMPANY :

CARMEN CORTÉS

Artistic Team

* Corps de ballet: 6 dancers * Musicians: 2 guitars, 2 female singers,

2 male singers, 1 percussionist

Technical Team * Lighting Technician * Sound Technician * Stage Manager * Engineer * Tailor Company Assistance

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CREDITS

Choreography: CARMEN CORTÉS Lighting Design: RAFAEL MOJAS/OLGA GARCÍA Set Design: FERNANDOBERNUÉS/CARLES PUJOL Texts: FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA Dramaturgy: TOMÁS AFÁN MUÑOZ Set Creation: TALLER D’ESCENOGRAFÍA DEL TEATRE-AUDITORI Musical Director: FAUSTINO NÚÑEZ SANT CUGAT Director: FERNANDO BERNUÉS Costume Design: GABRIELA SALAVERRI Costume Creation: CARLOTA

Shoe effects: KREATE C.B. Shoes and Boots: GALLARDO COPRODUCTION Technical Production: LOLA CORTÉS Producer: ART-DANZA S.L Poster Design: ARTE-FACTOR/ELI TERSSE Poster Photography: NATHALI GOUX Distribution: OFICINA DE CARMEN CORTÉS

COLLABORATORS:

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PRESS

A Lorca Legend

The challenge faced by any ballet or flamenco dance theatre production is to create an atmosphere, portray a character, tell a story and have the spectator recognize it, follow it and read it in the dance, choreography and music. Lorca is probably the most widely adapted writer in this genre, and despite the strength and uniqueness of the characters that populate his plays, their transition to the stage has not always been successful. Joining Lorca’s female protagonists may not be as difficult as telling a story, but it does carry the challenge of sharing the essence of the characters in the few minutes that each piece lasts.

The set designed as a backdrop for so many different characters is austere, just like the harsh atmospheres portrayed in Lorca’s theatre that are always characterized by whitewashed walls and black dresses, with flashes of light representing the liberty or joy of the marriageable young women. To frame all of these women on stage there was only the presence of a piano and many, many dance shoes, so many that one does not know what symbolism to attribute to them. On that still life – which becomes more dynamic due to the allegorical meaning that it acquires - Carmen Cortés and her ensemble of women made each of the six stories included in the production recognizable. Fermín Lobatón. Seville Flamenco Biennial. El País

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PRESS

Carmen Cortés’ Triumph in Toledo

Flamenco dancer Carmen Cortés triumphed this weekend with her show Lorca’s Women at the Rojas Theatre in Toledo with a repertory full of references to the literary anthology of Federico García Lorca. It was a journey through the plays by the poet from Granada, including The House of Bernarda Alba, Yerma and Blood Wedding.

Ana Pérez Herrera. ABC

CARMEN CORTÉS

En “Bodas de Sangre” el conflicto íntimo lo tiene la novia, que desea a un hombre Carmen Cortés , born in

Barcelona, is currently one of the most prestigious artists in the Spanish dance scene, especially in reference to XXI century flamenco dance. She defines herself primarily as a flamenco dancer, but she participates in other forms of creation within dance and theatre through a continuous pursuit of reinvention and a meeting of flamenco and other manners of understanding dance.

Her style of dance is ferociously independent and always in search of innovation. Her dancing is elegant and sober, strong and fragile, delicately fierce and very personal with the utmost dedication and complete surrender.

With 27 productions under her belt, she has collaborated with some of the most important directors in : Gerardo Vera (La Celestina and Salome), Nuria Espert (Yerma), Francisco Suarez (Falla’s El amor brujo), Fernando Bernués (Lorca’s Women), and has danced the works of writers such as Lorca, José Bergamín, Vicente Alexandre, Rafael Alberti and Oscar Wilde. os rituales que acompañan a la boda. Y con la huída de la novia y la posterior reyerta, queda claramente expuesto el desenlace del deseo que se abre paso bruscamente con nefastas consecuencias.

CARMEN CORTÉS COMPAÑÍA DE DANZA FLAMENCA

Office:

Olivar, 13 28012 Madrid Spain

Spain & Latin America

Lola Cortés Tel: +34 91 5306444 Cell: +34 619602211 Email: [email protected]

Maria Antonia Torrejón Tel: +34 91 2224111 Cell: +34 618581291 Email: [email protected]

International Distribution

Justine Bayod Espoz Tel: +1 773 276-8144 Email: [email protected] CURSO FLAMENCO, S.L. www.carmencortes.es