Originality can, as Antoni Gaudí said, be a return to the origin, just as radicalism can be seen in tradition. The artists featured in this series of performances take a language such as flamenco or traditional dances and tweak their expression, acting as veritable roots that serve as a nurturing vessel. Just like the roots of trees that form communicative networks underground, they draw in the resources needed to grow leaves and expand their immense trunks, which, in this case, is the body of the dance.
Just as the root is porous and created from the hybridisation of nutritious materials, Laia Santanach and La Chachi, who hail from two very different cultural backgrounds, Andalusian and Catalan, breathe contemporary life into traditional celebrations. The traditional roots are updated by the brothers Víctor and Raúl Pérez Armero, one from the body and the other from music, based on a shared memory that builds the present. From the flamenco roots, Manuel Liñán transforms the love couplet into conceptual modernity. Laila Tafur, with her talent for bridging time, sings Whitney Houston from a flamenco tablao, while choreographer and dancer Juan Carlos Lérida looks to another singer for whom time seems to stand still, Cher, and focuses on the technological element of auto-tune, which began as an aid to maintain perfect pitch, and became a tool for deliberate detuning. The artists thereby modify traditional harmonies so that their roots live on.
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